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Ancient Greek Mystery Cults
British Academy Small Research Grant
Dr Efrosyni Boutsikas (Classical and Archaeological Studies)
Most ancient Greek religious festivals were held at night, in the open, with little artificial light, before an altar. The celestial dome would therefore have been crucial to the festival, integrating the night-sky within the cult experience. The potential importance that this might have had for those attending rituals has so far been ignored in studies of ancient Greek cult performance. This project brings together the spiritual and cosmological tenets of the cults (known to us through literary sources), the survey of the spatial layout of religious structures, and the surrounding landscape, in order to address how important cosmological concepts were communicated through the rituals of the Greek Mystery cults of Demeter in Eleusis, the sanctuary of the Great Gods in Samothrace, and sanctuary of Kabeiroi in Lemnos.
Myth, Ritual and the Cosmos: Greek Astronomy in Ancient Athenian Culture
British Academy Small Research Grant
Dr Efrosyni Boutsikas (Classical and Archaeological Studies)
By bringing together archaeology and Classics, this project initiates an international, interdisciplinary collaboration in the study of ancient Greek astronomy. The project brings together UK and New Zealand scholars in order initially to review the role and function of ancient Greek astronomy in religion, as well as the division between religious and civic uses of Greek astronomy along with the types of astronomical observations that each involved (e.g. solar, stellar, lunar). The project will produce and develop a new and integrated methodological approach to the study of ancient Greek astronomy in religion, by focusing mainly upon a case study concerning the re-examination of literary and archaeological data from the Athenian Acropolis; in particular, by focusing upon the links between the Greek myth of the formation of the constellation of the Hyades, the astronomical movement of the constellation, and the timing of maiden festivals on the Acropolis. This collaboration will create a sound interdisciplinary methodological approach that will improve current knowledge on the practical uses of Greek astronomy and will be applicable to future studies of Greek astronomy, Archaeology, Ancient History and Classics.