This article explores how Dionysus' mythical birth from Zeus' thigh provides the background behind the workings of an unnamed group of birth workers/practitioners in their handling of an infant's umbilical cord, mentioned in Soranus' Gynecology.Soranus recommends bending the cut umbilical cord in on itself, then wrapping it in wool and placing it gently on the infant's navel, but this outside group, instead, attaches the ligated cord to the infant's thigh - a practice that I argue is connected to the thigh birth of Dionysus. I demonstrate how the thigh carries cultural beliefs about life, procreation, and identity, and coupled with medical ideas about major vein placement, connects with the placement for Zeus' proxy womb. Ultimately, I hypothesize that this alternative group of birth workers is working with the understanding of the thigh as a carrier of both identity and blood as the newborn stabilizes its life, a belief sustained by Dionysus' birth myth.
Ailios Aristeides saw himself as steeped in the tradition of Greek paideia, and his choice and representation of divinities largely reflect the same interest in classical 'Greekness' which pervades his works as a whole. One exception stands out: the 'Egyptian' gods Isis and, more prominently, Sarapis. The fact that Aristeides worships these gods is not in itself surprising, given their popularity in the second century CE. It does, however, raise the question of how Aristeides integrates them into a pantheon which he understands as rooted in a tradition without them. This article examines how Aristeides constructs and incorporates the 'foreignness' of Sarapis in the Hieroi Logoiand Hymn to Sarapisand what he gains from the god's connection to Egypt. Aristeides, it is argued, balances Egyptian-connotated and Greek testimony to raise Sarapis to the status of a universal god and to make him comparable and compatible with a traditional picture of Greek divinity without assimilating him. Sarapis retains just enough Egyptian colouring to distinguish him from the other gods and lend Aristeides' writings and religiosity a touch of 'Egyptianness'. By assuming the compatibility of Egyptian and Greek religious traditions instead of either completely Hellenising or exoticising Sarapis, Aristides can draw on the authority of both to enhance, via Sarapis, his own claims to extra-institutional religious authority and exceptional nearness to the divine. His enterprise is facilitated by the importance of the written word as the basis of imperial Greek intellectual identity. Textuality gives Aristeides a way to bridge classical tradition with post-classical cultic reality: classical Greek texts supply him with a tradition of writing about Egypt into which he can fit the (for him) Egyptian god Sarapis, and the association of Egypt with expressly religious writings, with abundant 'sacred texts', both complements the very limited role of sacred texts in traditional Greek literature and religion and appeals to the value and authority which pepaideumenoiattach to the written word.
This paper explores the ritualized binding of cult images with chains or fetters in the ancient Mediterranean. Both ancient and contemporary interpretations often view these practices as efforts to retain divine presence in times of crisis or to restrain the volatile power of fickle gods. This paper suggests an alternative interpretation grounded in materiality theory and comparative insights from East Asian ritual iconoclasm. I argue that ritualized binding served as a material means to activate the latent power of the cult image, and that chaining an image was a performative strategy intended to compel divine efficacy through materialized humiliation. I argue that the application of chains constructed the power of the image, transforming inert matter into powerful locations of divine presence. Ultimately, the paper reframes binding as a generative religious technology that mediated divine power through material intervention and ritual manipulation.
This article introduces a special section focused on the archaeological study of small finds and their significance in understanding religious experience in the ancient Mediterranean. Challenging the historical tendency to dismiss these objects as cheap or non-functional, the introduction posits that small, portable objects offer a more intimate and nuanced view of ancient "lived religion" than monumental remains do. Theoretical frameworks such as "investment-labour," the "use-life biographies" of objects, and material entanglement allow rich explorations of how these small items functioned. Thus, these "little things aren't little," and analyzing them provides crucial micro-scale insights into the affective, performative, and processual nature of ancient religion. The following studies demonstrate how small objects can reveal the complex social, personal, and religious meanings embedded in their creation, use, inscription, and deposition.
This article narrates an object biography for one of the Orphic-Bacchic gold lamellae, "Tablet B" from Pelinna in Thessaly (Graf and Johnston 26b). Following the methodology of the "social life of things," this biographical narrative focalizes seven stages in the life of the tablet: (1) acquiring gold material; (2) producing sheet gold; (3) cutting sheet gold to shape; (4) wearing as a crown or other jewelery; (5) inscribing; (6) folding and wearing; (7) death and burial. Distinguishing the many manufacturing chapters of a lamella's life highlights its physical qualities of smallness, thinness, and lightness. The specialized requirements of goldworking technology for such small things suggest that most - if not all - of the gold tablets were recut or repurposed from other objects rather than purpose-made as Orphic amulets. This frequent reuse demonstrates the extent to which individual acts of initiation were a local and idiosyncratic phenomenon.
