Conferences
Defining and Interpreting Ancient Greek Cult Deposits, Ancient Olympia 24-27 October 2008.
Petra Pakkanen, Depositing cult. ”Considerations on what makes a cult deposit”.
Berit Wells, ”New beginnings? Preparations for renewal of cult at Kalaureia and Asine”.
Perceptions of Polis Religion: Inside/Outside. A Symposium in Memory of Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood”, Reading 4-6 July 2008.
Petra Pakkanen, “Crossing the Border of Official and Private Religion at the Poseidon Sanctuary of Kalaureia on Poros”.
Abstract
This paper presents a discussion and methodologies for reviewing the common conceptualisation of Greek religion into two rather exclusive main spheres of official polis religion and that of private or local religiousness. The theme will be scrutinised firstly by looking at the 'historiography' of conceptualisation of Greek religion in the tradition of religious/cultural studies and within the field of Classics, and secondly through a case study of the material related to religion from the sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia on Poros. This discussion will particularly address the question of how polis-religion is to be understood within the broader framework of regional and local religious networks and their relation to polis. This will be done by scrutinising the nature of the Kalaureian cult the material traces of which exhibit quite enigmatic features regarding past cultic activities at the site. The phenomenon of (ritual?) dining connected with the claimed asylia-function of the sanctuary will serve as an example. Generally, at Kalaureia regional/local aspects of cult overlap and crisscross with official, public and panhellenic characteristics of the Greek religion. Therefore, a discussion of the significance and interpretation of border(s) and boundaries between both physical and symbolic separation of sacred and profane, temenos and polis will also be presented. Finally, these observations are further elaborated to encompass a discussion about the difference between cult and ritual from the theoretical point of view. Drawing distinction between the two may help us understand the dynamics and interplay between official, city-state-oriented and ‘private’, local aspects of ancient Greek religion.
Approaches to Religion in Ancient Greece – an International Symposium, Athens 17-19 April 2008.
Petra Pakkanen, ”Polis within the Polis: Crossing the Border of Official and Private Religion at the Poseidon Sanctuary of Kalaureia on Poros”.
Abstract
This paper presents a discussion and methodologies for reviewing the common conceptualisation of Greek religion into two rather exclusive main spheres of official polis religion and that of private religiousness. The theme will be scrutinised through a case study of the material related to religion from the sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia on Poros.
I will firstly clarify my method of studying conceptualisation of the Greek religion in general and the Kalaureian religion in particular. In defining Greek religion on the basis of material from one site, Kalaureia, we constantly move between general (and generalising) principles and particular ones. These are general conceptions on the nature of Greek religion and the particular type of the religious life of the Kalaureian sanctuary. The aim is to create a method which could bind general and particular together both theoretically (views of the study of religion) and practically (views of the 'archaeology of religion'). The themes to be discussed within this framework will be the claimed asylia-function of the sanctuary and its nature as a seat of amphictyony. This discussion will be connected to interpreting the role ritual(?) dining played in the life of the sanctuary.
Secondly I will scrutinise the nature of the Kaluareian cult in the light of the role which polis has played in providing a structural framework for conceptualising religion in Greek societies. City-state at Kalaureia does not necessarily seem to possess primacy over religion. At Kalaureia regional/local aspects of cult overlap and crisscross with official, public and panhellenic characteristics of the Greek religion. Therefore, close examination of the nature of the cultic life at this particular site challenges us to reconsider and re-evaluate the premises of the basic divisions in the definition of ancient Greek religion in official cult, which reflects panhellenic aspects of religious life, and private cults which are seen as more prone to fall into the realm of local/regional religion. Theoretically these observations are bound to interpretations of the interplay between general and particular.
13th International Congress Cultural Heritage and New Technologies (Workshop 13 of “Archäologie und Computer”). Vienna, 3–5 November 2008.
Section 1: Archaeology and technology
Session: Publishing "old" excavations with new technologies 4: What could be more basic than databases
Jari Pakkanen, "Documentation and computer reconstruction strategies in the study of architecture at the sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia, Greece."
Abstract
The Kalaureia Archaeological Program – the Sea, the City and the God is a multi-disciplinary project hosted by the Swedish Archaeological Institute at Athens and funded by the National Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation (2007–2012). In the recording of the progress of the excavations and architectural features special emphasis has been placed on the use of current digital technologies. At the conception of the programme three-dimensional site scanning was ruled out due to high costs and it has been largely replaced by extensive use of up to three total stations. Due to the detailed measurements of the archaeological features it is e.g. possible to present a detailed 3D digital elevation models (DEM) of the various states of the excavations. It is also possibly to add further details to the 3D models by draping actual photographs over the DEM. In the recording of architecture the total stations are used to directly ‘draw’ the features with laser. Effective use of the laser requires frequent changes in the position of the instrument which is made possible by an extensive network of fixed points over the large site. Recording the architecture principally as lines has the added benefit of making the production of site plans and 3D reconstructions clearly quicker. The terrain models and recorded ancient features can be integrated with the reconstructions to display what is the basis of the architectural interpretations.
Archaeological Ethnographies: Charting a field, devising methodologies
A “Kalaureia Research Programme” Workshop, supported by the Municipality of Poros and the University of Southampton
Poros Island, Greece, 6-8 June 2008
Organisers: Yannis Hamilakis and Aris Anagnostopoulos (University of Southampton, UK).
In the last few years, an increasing number of researchers has started engaging in projects that are situated at the interface between socio-cultural anthropology and archaeology, aimed at investigating the links between material heritage in general, archaeology, and the various non-archaeological communities associated with them. It seems that these projects signify the emergence of a new field which is distinct from the now established fields of socio-politics of the past, community and public archaeology, and the ethnography of archaeological practice, although it is related to the above fields in significant ways.
Αρχαιολογία του Περιβάλλοντος – Ιστορία του Ανθρωπογενούς Περιβάλλοντος. Παν/μιο Θεσσαλονίκης, Τμήμα Ιστορίας-Αρχαιολογίας, 29-29 Μαρτίου 2008.
D. Mylona, "Η ζωο-αρχαιολογία σε νέες διαδρομές. Υπολείμματα στεριανών και θαλάσσιων ζώων στο Ιερό του Ποσειδώνα στην Καλαυρεία, Πόρος."
Περίληψη
Η ιστορική πορεία της ζωο-αρχαιολογίας στην Ελλάδα της κληροδότησε ορισμένα χαρακτηριστικά που καθόρισαν τον προσανατολισμό και την φυσιογνωμία των ζωο-αρχαιολογικών μελετών στην Ελλάδα, από την δεκαετία του 1970 μέχρι πρόσφατα. Η εφαρμογή ζωο-αρχαιολογικών αναλύσεων κατά κύριο λόγο σε προϊστορικές ανασκαφές, η έμφαση σε ζητήματα παλαιο-περιβάλλοντος και η ελλιπής ένταξη των ζωο-αρχαιολογικών δεδομένων στην χωρο-χρονική τους συνάφεια είναι μερικά από τα πιο ευδιάκριτα χαρακτηριστικά. Τα τελευταία χρόνια η ζωο-αρχαιολογία, όπως εφαρμόζεται στην Ελλάδα, φαίνεται ν΄ αλλάζει σημαντικά, με κύρια νέα στοιχεία της την διεύρυνση της προβληματικής της και των δεδομένων που αξιοποιεί, την χρονολογική της επέκταση, την πολύπλευρη ένταξή της στην αρχαιολογική προβληματική και την σταδιακή της εξάπλωση σε ανασκαφές όλων των αρχαιολογιών φορέων στον Ελλαδικό χώρο.
Η παρούσα εργασία εικονογραφεί μερικές από τις νέες διαδρομές που εξερεύνα η ζωο-αρχαιολογία παρουσιάζοντας ορισμένα από τα αποτελέσματα της ανάλυσης ενός συνόλου οστών χερσαίων και θαλάσσιων ζώων από το Ιερό του Ποσειδώνα στην Καλαυρεία. Οι παρατηρήσεις και η προβληματική που προκύπτουν από την ανάλυση των ζωικών υπολειμμάτων του «εορταστικού δείπνου» χρησιμοποιούνται για να προσεγγίσουν ζητήματα λατρείας και να αμφισβητήσουν την επάρκεια των γραπτών πηγών ως αποκλειστικές πηγές πληροφόρησης για τέτοια θέματα. Επίσης οι παρατηρήσεις αυτές χρησιμοποιούνται για να ρίξουν φως στην έρευνα για την ύπαρξη και τα χαρακτηριστικά μιας συγκεκριμένης ομάδας λατρευτών στο Ιερό, τους ψαράδες. Οι ψαράδες ως μέλη ειδικευμένων αλιευτικών κοινοτήτων με διακριτό χαρακτήρα είναι λίγο-πολύ αόρατοι στην σημερινή έρευνα και η ζωο-αρχαιολογία θα μπορούσε να προσφέρει ένα τρόπο εντοπισμού τους.
Paper read at the AAA meetings, Washington DC, 28 November–2 December 2007.
Yannis Hamilakis, "Decolonizing archaeological practice in the crypto-colony."
Abstract
Recent postcolonial perspectives and practices in archaeology are usually associated with indigenous groups and descendent communities, and they generally take place in countries conventionally accepted as former colonies. In this paper I want to focus on a European context instead, and show that colonial imagination and practice, often entangled with national imagination, has shaped archaeology as much in the European heartlands as in non-European locales. Greece is a particularly interesting example in that respect, being both a European core in symbolic and imaginary terms, and a European (or even a non-European, for some) periphery in modern geopolitical terms. While not formally colonized, given the circumstances of the foundation of the Greek nation-state and especially the role of western powers and western archaeologists in this process, it can be described (following M. Herzfeld) as crypto-colony. Based on my current archaeological ethnography project which forms part of the Kalaureia Research Programme at the Sanctuary of Poseidon on the island of Poros (a Swedish project with an international team carried out under the auspices of the Swedish School at Athens), I will show how decolonizing archaeology in the crypto-colony can enrich our understanding and highlight the further potential as well as the drawbacks of post-colonial archaeology, as thought of and practiced to date.
CULT AND SANCTUARY THROUGH THE AGES, Castá-Papiernicka, Bratislava, 16–19 November 2007.
Petra Pakkanen, "Defining Cult Site. Theoretical Observations on the Nature of Religion at the Sanctuary of Kalaureia on Poros, Greece."
Abstract
The Sanctuary of Poseidon is located in the centre of the island of Kalaureia, the larger of the two islands that make up today’s Poros in Greece. An international team of researchers is currently working on the site and on the island carrying out a long-term investigation funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation with the permission for the Swedish Archaeological Institute at Athens. This paper presents some ideas for interpreting the nature, function and development of religion and cultic activity of the Kalaureian sanctuary with particular emphasis on methodological and theoretical points of view.
The discussion will attempt to define the term religion in its context and also aims at an understanding of how the concept of past religion has been formulated in relation to our modern conceptions. When studying Kalaureian material which is connected with religious activity, the interpretative work is conducted as an integral part of an ongoing archaeological investigation. The investigation, which involves a two-stage procedure, can be characterised as hermeneutic: on the basis of an overview on how religion and cultic activity has been conceptualised among scholarly community the particular Kalaureian material is set against general interpretative views about the nature and characteristics of ancient Greek cult. The strategy for conceptualising Kalaureian religion is formed in a process of oscillation between our general conceptualisation of ancient Greek religion and particular – in certain cases even enigmatic – Kalaureian material connected with cultic activities.
The new excavations at the Poseidon sanctuary have produced material with strong cultic associations. In order to illustrate our interpretative process this paper presents a possible methodology for interpreting the nature and characteristics of Kalaureian cultic activity by taking a closer look at one distinct aspect of its cultic life, namely (ritual) dining which at Kalaureian sanctuary seems to have been an important feature over long periods of time. At Kalaureia material from two deposits – one dated to the early and the other to the late Hellenistic period – present rather enigmatic features which do not conform with any known ancient Greek cultic practices. A strategy for establishing criteria for cult or ritual activities discernible on the basis of archaeological material will be discussed. Finally, these observations are further elaborated to encompass a discussion about the difference between cult and ritual from theoretical point of view. Drawing distinction between the two may help us understand the dynamics and interplay between ‘official’ and ‘private’ aspects of ancient Greek religion.
Eat, Drink and be Merry: the archaeology of food. 40th Chacmool Conference, Calgary, Canada, 10-12 November 2007.
D. Mylona, B. Wells & A. Penttinen, "Dining in the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalauriea (Greece) around 165 B.C. Theoretical and methodological considerations in archaeological practise."
Abstract
The social character of food consumption and the economic and political role of communal eating has been widely treated in anthroplogical discourse but only recently in archaeology. However, little explored are the actual processes that lead to the fomulation of research questions, to the adoption of specific field and analytic methodologies and eventually to the interpretation of the archaeological finds that are related to such phenomena.
Excavations in the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia, Greece, revealed the remains of a large dining event in a closed, precisely dated context (165 B.C.). This assemblage consisted of thousands of fragments of cooking, serving and drinking vessels, and a few other objects such as lamps. It also contained a large amount of bones both from the typical sacrificial animals such as cattle, pig, sheep and goats and from a large variety of fish, among which tunas were common. Plant and seafood remains accentuate the impression of richness given by this assemblage. This paper explores the theoretical and methodological factors that have been important in the practise of an “archaeology of food” within, and in close contact with, the much more traditional field of Classical archaeology. Such an anatomy of the archaeological practise offers a better evaluation of the insights into the nature of the dining event and its structure, into the variety of consumed foods and the identity of the participants. Hopefully it contributes towards the development of the “archaeology of food”.
THE “DARK AGES” REVISITED. An International Conference in Memory of William D. E. Coulson. University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece, 14-17 June 2007.
B. Wells, "Evidence of EIA activities in the Poseidon Sanctuary at Kalaureia."
Abstract
Excavations in the Poseidon Sanctuary at Kalaureia in 2003-2004 have revealed an intriguing set of data from the second half of the eighth century BC. Around 750 a building was constructed of which a stretch of wall has survived together with a portion of its floor. The ceramics trampled into the floor suggest a short life for the building. In order to create good drainage for it a fill of soil, stones and cultural material had been brought to the location. The fill lay on bedrock and covered a pit cut down into it. Also the pit had been filled with cultural material mixed with soil and stones and carefully sealed with closely packed stones. Underneath them a goat horn core and several pieces of the goat’s scull were found.
The sealed pit is one of three such features, the other two being located less than ten m distant to the west. One was partly damaged through the digging of a cistern in Archaic times; the other lost its probable sealing of stones through an extension of the area also in the Archaic period. It can with confidence be said that the material found in the three pits is coeval and has a number of characteristics in common, the most conspicuous being that all three contain fragments of very large Late Geometric vessels and pieces of large Late Mycenaean IIIC kraters. Several of the LG fragments come from large richly decorated amphorae, one of which is certainly a work by the Hirschfeld Painter and others emanating from the Dipylon Workshop and perhaps from the Master himself.
The following questions will be discussed:
- How are we to understand the relationship between the pit underneath the building and its construction?
- What are the LH IIIC kraters doing in the pits? There is no other Mycenaean material in the pits whatsoever. What do they tell us of what was going on in the area?
- The large amphorae are of the type generally associated with Attic burials. Why were they brought to Kalaureia? One of them may not have been brought for its own sake but for its contents, which has been determined through residue analysis.
- What was going on at Kalaureia? What do these spectacular vessels tell us about the society, which used them, and about their contacts with the outside world?
