Apotropaia and Phylakteria: Confronting Evil in Ancient Greece

Apotropaia and Phylakteria: Confronting Evil in Ancient Greece is the outcome of the conference held in Athens in June 2021 and hosted by the Swedish Institute at Athens. The belief in the existence of evil forces was part of ancient everyday life and a phenomenon deeply embedded in popular thought of the Greek world. Fear of such malevolent powers generated the need for protection and we find clear traces of these concerns in both textual and archaeological sources. From the beginnings of literature, there is mention of ghosts and other daemonic beings that needed appeasement, and of ways of repulsing evil, such as the use of baskania and antibaskania (apotropaia). Repeatedly, we meet rituals of an apotropaic or prophylactic character conducted as part of everyday and family life, as for example on the occasion of a birth, marriage or death in the oikos (the cleansing of the house and household, libations and sacrifices in honour of oikos ancestors), and other practices that focused on the protection of the community as a whole, i.e. the Pharmakos ritual. Archaeology reveals an abundance of material objects thought to have the power to attract benevolent, and avert evil, forces. Traces of ritual practices necessary to ensure prosperity and avert personal disaster are manifest today in the form of amulets, certain semi-precious stones believed to protect women and children, eye-beads found in large numbers in many archaeological assemblages, possibly various types of terracotta figurines, such as nude female grotesques and various ithyphallic characters, to name a few. In addition, symbols and certain iconographic motifs, such as the phallus, the open hand, the Gorgoneion, images of triple Hekate, and Hermes, have been subject to a number of differing interpretations relative to apotropaic power. The belief in the existence of evil forces was part of ancient everyday life and a phenomenon deeply embedded in popular thought of the Greek world. Stemming from a conference held in Athens in June 2021, this volume addresses the apotropaia and phylakteria from different perspectives: via literary sources, archaeological material, and iconography. Cover 1 Title Page 3 Copyright page 4 Contents Page 5 Preface 7 Confronting Evil at the Boundaries of the City, the House, and the Human Body 9 Christopher A. Faraone 9 Women’s Choral Apotropaic Songs in Tragic Contexts of Domestic and Civic Disharmony 19 Vasiliki Kousoulini 19 Apotropaic and Prophylactic Practices at Troizen and Methana 27 Maria Giannopoulou 27 Some Thoughts on Apotropaic Devices in Greek Pottery Production1 41 Oliver Pilz 41 Archaic Anthropomorphic Figurines from the Argolid Potentially Associated with Ritual Activity of an Apotropaic Character 50 Anna Philippa-Touchais 50 Terracotta Figurines of Apotropaic and/or Prophylactic Character in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens1 62 Maria Chidiroglou 62 Clay Figurines from Smyrna in the I. Misthos Collection at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens: A Study in Deformity and Apotropaic Character1 78 Eirini Peppa Papaioannou 78 The Interpretation of Clay Gorgoneion-Roundels in Sacral Contexts: Evidence from the Sanctuary of Artemis Limnatis at Ancient Messene 93 Maria G. Spathi 93 Magic-Related(?) Graffiti on Pottery from Piraeus 108 Daphne Koletti 108 Reliefs from Ancient Messene: The Motif of the Open Hand 117 Eugenia Lambropoulou 117 Fearing the Evil Eye in Graeco-Roman Religion and Magic: Remarks on an Apotropaic Bas-Relief from Actia Nicopolis (Epirus, Greece)1 127 Evangelos Pavlidis and Anastasia Giovanopoulou 127 Sacred Transitions: Protecting City Gates in Sicily and Magna Graecia 136 Valentina Garaffa 136 Some Evidence for Amulets in the Demeter and Kore Greek Sanctuary at Ancient Corinth1 147 Sonia Klinger 147 Tracing the Possible Prophylactic Attributes of Parthenos at Ancient Neapolis (Kavala) 159 Amalia Avramidou 159 Things Jingling from the Beyond: Tracking the Amuletic Function of Bells in Roman Greece 170 Dimitris Grigoropoulos 170 An Etruscan Silver Ring Depicting a Scorpion from a Deposit in an Archaic House in Philia (Karditsa) 194 Dimitris Paleothodoros and Christos Karagiannopoulos 194 Apotropaic and Prophylactic Jewellery from Abdera 212 Constantina Kallintzi and Kyriaki Chatziprokopiou 213 Technical Phylactery in Graeco-Egyptian Ritual Practice1 231 Barbara Takács 231 Reflections on Some Cases of interpretatio aegyptiaca on Magical Gems1 241 Dominique Barcat 241 A Gem to Counter the Empousa 251 Anastasia Maravela 251 Chnoubis, Glykon, Agathodaimon, and the Strange Story of the Swamps of Central Macedonia: Notes on Magical Gems Depicting Snakes1 259 Eleni Tsatsou 259 ‘Against a Demon and Fears.’ A Phylactery in the Archaeological Museum of Perugia 273 Paolo Vitellozzi 275 Back cover 280 Apotropaia;,Phylakteria;,Prophylactic,practices;,Apotropaic,practices;,Evil,Eye;,Amulets;,Magical,Gems;,Greek,Religion;,Classical,Archaeology;,Greek,Cults Apotropaia,Phylakteria,Prophylactic practices,Apotropaic practices,Evil Eye,Amulets,Magical Gems,Greek Religion,Classical Archaeology,Greek Cults