Excavating Pilgrimage: Archaeological Approaches to Sacred Travel and Movement in the Ancient World

by Troels Myrup Kristensen (Editor), Wiebke Friese (Editor)

Overview

This volume sheds new light on the significance and meaning of material culture for the study of pilgrimage in the ancient world, focusing in particular on Classical and Hellenistic Greece, the Roman Empire and Late Antiquity. It thus discusses how archaeological evidence can be used to advance our understanding of ancient pilgrimage and ritual experience. The volume brings together a group of scholars who explore some of the rich archaeological evidence for sacred travel and movement, such as the material footprint of different activities undertaken by pilgrims, the spatial organization of sanctuaries and the wider catchment of pilgrimage sites, as well as the relationship between architecture, art and ritual. Contributions also tackle both methodological and theoretical issues related to the study of pilgrimage, sacred travel and other types of movement to, from and within sanctuaries through case studies stretching from the first millennium BC to the early medieval period.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781351856256
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	02/03/2017
Series:	Routledge Studies in Pilgrimage, Religious Travel and Tourism
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	306
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Troels Myrup Kristensen is Associate Professor of Classical Archaeology at Aarhus University, Denmark. He is the director of the Sapere Aude-project "The Emergence of Sacred Travel: Experience, Economy and Connectivity in Ancient Mediterranean Pilgrimage" (2013–2017), funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research. His research interests are pilgrimage, visual culture and cultural heritage.

Wiebke Friese was until recently Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of History and Classical Studies at Aarhus University, Denmark, as part of the project, "The Emergence of Sacred Travel: Experience, Economy and Connectivity in Ancient Mediterranean Pilgrimage" (2013–2017). She has published on oracle sanctuaries and Athenian women’s festivals.

Table of Contents

List of figures

Preface

Notes on contributors

1. Introduction: Archaeologies of pilgrimage
Wiebke Friese and Troels Myrup Kristensen

2. Inter-cultural pilgrimage, identity, and the Axial Age in the ancient Near East
Joy McCorriston

3. Collective mysteries and Greek pilgrimage: The cases of Eleusis, Thebes and Andania
Inge Nielsen

4. Of piety, gender and ritual space: An archaeological approach to women’s sacred travel in Greece
Wiebke Friese

5. The pilgrim’s passage into the sanctuary of the Great Gods, Samothrace
Bonna Wescoat

6. Pilgrimage and procession in the Panhellenic festivals: Some observations on the Hellenistic Leukophryena in Magnesia-on-the-Meander
Kristoph Jürgens

7. Palimpsest and virtual presence: A reading of space and dedications at the Amphiareion at Oropos in the Hellenistic period
Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis

8. Roman healing pilgrimage north of the Alps
Martin Grünewald

9. Visiting the ancestors: Ritual movement in Rome’s urban borderland
Saskia Stevens

10. The pilgrim and the arch: Paths and passageways at Qal’at Sem’an, Sinai, Abu Mina, and Tebessa
Ann Marie Yasin

11. Movement as sacred mimesis at Abu Mena and Qal’at Sem’an
Heather Hunter-Crawley

12. The allure of the saint: Late antique pilgrimage to the monastery of St Shenoute
Louise Blanke

13. Excavating Meriamlik: Sacred space and economy in late antique pilgrimage
Troels Myrup Kristensen

14. Pilgrimage and multi-religious worship: Palestinian Mamre in Late Antiquity
Vlastimil Drbal

Responses

15. Excavating pilgrimage
Jas’ Elsner

16. Pilgrimage progress?
Jan N. Bremmer

Index

Editorial Reviews

"an important and welcome [volume]"

- Alexander Meyer, University of Western Ontario, Canada, The Classical Review 2019

From the Publisher