Carrie Ann Murray - Diversity of Sacrifice: Form and Function of Sacrificial Practices in the Ancient World and Beyond

Diversity of Sacrifice

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Diversity of Sacrifice: Form and Function of Sacrificial Practices in the Ancient World and Beyond

Carrie Ann Murray, editor

Logo and cover/interior art: A vessel with wagon motifs from Bronocice, Poland, 3400 B.C. Courtesy of Sarunas Milisauskas and Janusz Kruk, 1982, Die Wagendarstellung auf einem Trichterbecher au Bronocice, Polen, Archologisches Korrespondenzblatt 12: 141144

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State University of New York Press, Albany

2016 State University of New York

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Diversity of sacrifice : form and function of sacrificial practices in the ancient world and beyond / edited by Carrie Ann Murray.

pages cm. (SUNY series, The Institute for European and Mediterranean Archaeology distinguished monograph series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4384-5995-0 (hardcover : alkaline paper)

ISBN 978-1-4384-5996-7 (e-book) 1. SacrificeEuropeHistoryTo 1500Congresses. 2. SacrificeMeditarranean RegionHistoryTo 1500Congresses. 3. Social archaeologyEuropeCongresses. 4. Social archaeologyMeditarranean RegionCongresses. 5. Archaeology and religionEuropeCongresses. 6. Archaeology and religionMeditarranean RegionCongresses. 7. Material cultureEuropeHistoryTo 1500Congresses. 8. Material cultureMeditarranean RegionHistoryTo 1500Congresses. 9. Social interactionEuropeHistoryTo 1500Congresses. 10. Social interactionMeditarranean RegionHistoryTo 1500Congresses. I. Murray, Carrie Ann, 1976 II. University of Buffalo. Institute for European and Mediterranean Archaeology.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my grandfather, Detective Louis Linton Miller,
who died while protecting the people of New York City

Contents

I NTRODUCTION
The Value and Power of Sacrifice

Carrie Ann Murray

P ART I
D EFINING AND R EDEFINING THE B OUNDARIES OF S ACRIFICE

C HAPTER O NE
Anthropology and Sacrifice

Phillips Stevens Jr.

C HAPTER T WO
A View from a Fen: On the Concept of Sacrifice and the Possibility of Understanding Neolithic Wetland Depositions

sa Berggren

C HAPTER T HREE
Gifts from the Gods: A New Look at Some Weapons and Vessels from the Metal Ages

Christoph Huth

C HAPTER F OUR
Post-Domestic Sacrifice: Exploring the Present and Future of Gifts for the Gods

Samantha Hurn

P ART II
S ACRIFICE A CROSS THE M EDITERRANEAN W ORLD

C HAPTER F IVE
Every Good and Pure Thing: Sacrifice in the Ancient Egyptian Context

Mary-Ann Pouls Wegner

C HAPTER S IX
The Mythology of Carthaginian Child Sacrifice: A Physical Anthropological Perspective

Jeffrey H. Schwartz

C HAPTER S EVEN
The Art of Ancient Greek Sacrifice: Spectacle, Gaze, Performance

Tyler Jo Smith

C HAPTER E IGHT
Etruscan Human Sacrifice: The Case of Tarquinia

Nancy T. de Grummond

P ART III
E XPLORING E XCEPTIONAL C ASES OF S ACRIFICE

C HAPTER N INE
Human Sacrifice as Crisis Management? The Case of the Early Neolithic Site of Herxheim, Palatinate, Germany

Andrea Zeeb-Lanz, Rose-Marie Arbogast, Silja Bauer, Bruno Boulestin, Anne-Sophie Coupey, Anthony Denaire, Fabian Haack, Christian Jeunesse, Dirk Schimmelpfennig, Rouven Turck

C HAPTER T EN
Dog Sacrifice at the Protohistoric Site of Mas Castellar (Ponts, Spain)

Enriqueta Pons, Ldia Colominas, Maria Saa

C HAPTER E LEVEN
Understanding the Death and Burial of Northern European Bog Bodies

Guinevere Granite

P ART IV
F ORMULARIZING AND R EGULARIZING S ACRIFICE

C HAPTER T WELVE
Sacrificing the Sign: The Alphabet as an Offering in Ancient Israel, or A Classicists Read on the Ritual Law of the Sotah

Roger D. Woodard

C HAPTER T HIRTEEN
Ancient Greek Laws on Sacrifice

Michael Gagarin

C HAPTER F OURTEEN
In What Way Is Christs Death a Sacrifice? Theories of Sacrifice and Theologies of the Cross

S. Mark Heim

Illustrations

I NTRODUCTION

The Value and Power of Sacrifice

Carrie Ann Murray

I SSUES OF S ACRIFICE IN S CHOLARSHIP

A n experience that affects all of the sensesthe impetuses and consequences of sacrificial practices relate to more than purely religious considerations. The continuous presence of sacrifice, in widely varying forms, from ancient to contemporary contexts is testament to its perceived long-term significance. Its relevance applies to the community, family, and individual. Evidence from archaeology, epigraphy, ethnography, history, and literature provides a wealth of insights into a multitude of sacrificial practices from across a wide spectrum of contexts. There is an abundance of scholarship informing our understanding of sacrifice in its different guises. Publications often explore the significance of sacrifice within the confines of separate contexts: ancient, contemporary, pagan, Christian, and others. The isolated perspectives often reach little consensus regarding what seems so neatly packaged as a single term, sacrifice, in our parlance, but what is a complex and varied transhistorical and transcultural phenomenon.

To begin, let us consider how sacrifice can be defined. Sacrifice in the ancient world has been defined as a central act of Greek and Roman religious ritual, an offering to the gods, heroes, or the dead (Stafford 2006:775). Here, as elsewhere, the emphasis is placed on a means of gift giving from humans to the supernatural and the otherworldly. The recipients of sacrificedeities and the deceasedare very different in nature, but are combined in definitions of sacrifice to distinguish these practices from purely mundane and secular actions. Discussions of other aspects of sacrifice, such as scale, types of offerings, and procedures are subsumed within these descriptions. These variables can diverge wildly without affecting what is seen as the essence of sacrifice, allowing us to categorize different types of sacrifice, for instance: blood, bloodless, animal, human, civic, private, etc. Typologies of sacrifice, as with most attempts to rationalize and compartmentalize social action, come with benefits and limitations. Identifying different contexts and purposes has been fundamental. Yet, such fine-grained distinctions between sacrificial rites of different contexts can also obscure aspects of sacrifice that present continuities rather than oppositions.