Books by Ian Rutherford
Luwian. The Luwian language, religion, and onomastics also survived in Cilicia, Lycia, Caria, and... more Luwian. The Luwian language, religion, and onomastics also survived in Cilicia, Lycia, Caria, and other areas of Anatolia into the Greco-Roman period. Hittite religion and Greek religion can thus be said to have existed over roughly the same chronological period, although Hittite religion is best attested in the LBA and not so well in the 1st millennium , while Greek religion is best attested in the 1st millennium , and not so well in the LBA. The apparent difference (as so often) comes down to the uneven distribution of evidence. Hence it should be clear that contact between these traditions, and adoption of elements in one by the other, could have happened at any time. A student of ancient Greek religion might well ask, why Hittite religion in particular? After all, we know of a number of other religious traditions from the Ancient Near East. In the early days the most significant archives available were the Neo-Assyrian ones at Nineveh in N. Iraq and those of various Sumerian city-states in Mesopotamia. More archives were found in N. Syria: on the Euphrates River the Amorite kingdom Mari (Middle Bronze Age, excavated from 1933) and the Hittite protectorate Emar (Late Bronze Age, excavated 1972-6). Finally, an archive of texts was found on the Mediterranean coast at Ugarit (Late Bronze Age, excavated from 1929), which turned out to be a W. Semitic city-state, alternately in the Egyptian and Hittite spheres of influence, and with connections to Crete. There is evidence for religious practice and belief for all these cultures. But for the student of ancient Greek religion, the Hittite evidence is particularly important for two reasons. First, because as a source for religious practice it is particularly rich and diverse. The archives provide detailed information about the religious system of the Hittite state, including festivals, purification rituals, oracleconsultations, prayers, and myths. Hittite religion is thus more comprehensively documented than any other ancient religious tradition in W. Asia, even Egypt. They also document the religious practice of neighbouring Anatolian states which the Hittites were interested in. In the East was the Hurrian state of Mitanni, where some of the gods were Indo-Iranian in origin; towards the West was Arzawa-Mira, bordering on the Aegean. The second reason is that the Hittites are likely to have been in direct diplomatic contact with Mycenaean Greece, known to them as Ahhiyawa. The hypothesis that Ahhiyawa is Greece was originally proposed by Emil Forrer in 1924, but not widely accepted. However, developments in the understanding of the geography of W. Anatolia have made it certain that Ahhiyawa was in the West, and virtually certain that it should be identified
Edited Volumes by Ian Rutherford
Papers by Ian Rutherford
Pilgrimage tends to bring together people of different religious backgrounds, and it may be a veh... more Pilgrimage tends to bring together people of different religious backgrounds, and it may be a vehicle for the diffusion of religious belief and practice. That's even true within a single culture such as ancient Greece: Greek pilgrims are sometimes instructed to set up "filial cults"; this seems to happen particularly in the context of oracles or healing shrines, the best attested case being Roman Claros. Things are more complex in the case of pilgrimage-sites shared by people from entirely different religious backgrounds, and it is this that I discuss in this paper. I explore three case studies: Greek pilgrimage to the Libyan-Egyptian oracle of Zeus Ammon at Siwa; Phoenician encounters with the sanctuary of Apollo on Delos; and pilgrimage associated with the bicultural healing deity Imhotep-Asclepios in Greco-Roman Egypt. In discussing these cases studies, I shall examine equivalences between gods' names, which we often find articulated at pilgrimage sanctuariesit is even possible that some of these equivalences originate in pilgrimage contexts. I shall also look at the migration of foreign gods' names and the growth of religious networks, which could at least in some cases (e.g. that of Zeus Ammon) have been facilitated by returning pilgrims.
Ceremonies, Feasts and Festivities in Ancient Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean World. Performance and Participation. [= Proceedings of the 11th Melammu Workshop, Barcelona, 29–31 January 2020] eds. R. Da Riva, A. Arroyo and C. Debourse. Münster:Zaphon, 241-255 , 2022
This article looks at the general question of comparative religion: Are similarities between cult... more This article looks at the general question of comparative religion: Are similarities between cultures to be explained as diffusion or parallel development? And if the latter, what can similarities tell us? I explore this issue through specific case of Mycenaean Greece and Hittite Anatolia. I take as my starting point the premise that contact between these cultures is likely to have happened in coastal regions, since the Mycenaeans were a sea power. I suggest that one area that has been neglected in previous research is the Black Sea coast north of the Hittite capital, known to the Hittites as Zalpuwa. Zalpuwa played an important role on Hittite traditions, and some evidence survives for its religious identity. I focus on a ritual complex that seems to have included the recruitment of girls from the region to serve as priestesses in the cult of a local sea goddess, Amamma. I compare the behavior of the girls who are recruited from the region to serve as priestesses to well-known patterns in Greek religion where girls serve in temples for a period, as at Brauron on the Aegean coast near Athens. It is not impossible that the Mycenaeans borrowed this, though arguing against this is lack of evidence for Mycenaean presence in the Black Sea. Even if there was no borrowing, it may still be possible to use this parallel comparatively. For example, girls' temple-service in Greece has often been explained as a sort of adolescent rite of passage. Should we perhaps interpret the case from Zalpuwa in the same way?
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Books by Ian Rutherford
Edited Volumes by Ian Rutherford
Papers by Ian Rutherford
We are pleased to announce the programme and registration for the 11th MOISA meeting ‘Music and Materiality’ hosted by the University of Reading in association with the University of Bologna.
For more information, including funding, travel to the venue and recommended accommodation, please see the following link: https://moisa2018.wordpress.com/
To register for the meeting please use this link: https://www.store.reading.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/faculty-of-arts-humanities-social-science/dept-of-classics/11th-moisa-meeting-music-and-materiality
Best wishes,
James Lloyd, Ian Rutherford and Donatella Restani
We shall focus on "Music in Pausanias’ Guide to Greece", looking especially the traces of ancient music in the ten books concerning the musical regions and oral tradition. It will be the first time that Pausanias’ text is analyzed from the musicological perspective.
The morning seminars (10am–1pm) will be led by Prof. Egert Pöhlmann (University of Erlangen), Prof. Donatella Restani (University of Bologna), Prof. Daniela Castaldo (University of Salento), Prof. Ian Rutherford (University of Reading), and Prof. Angelo Meriani (University of Salerno).
The evening lectures, which normally start around 6 pm, provide an overview of the most recent developments in the thriving field of ancient Greek and Roman Music and his cultural heritage, as well as a chance to improve current projects thanks to the feedback and questions of the audience.