Sandra and I hit the road at dawn, buzzing with that strange blend of hope and dread you get when planning to visit a site that's ‘temporarily closed.’ “Don’t expect much,” Sandra sighed as we wound our way up the mountain.
We cannot judge the past by modern mores. There were no supermarkets to purchase neatly packaged fillets; life was short, harsh, and brutal, and humans not exempt from natural disasters. Unpleasant as it may seem to modern sensibilities, we need to step into that world to truly understand the whys and wherefores. The conceptual frameworks of the deities and the practices associated with them are ultimately human and derive from the realities of life in that context. There are regions of Greece in which ritual animal sacrifice persists - to the new religion - but the practices remain the same. Yes, the animal is slaughtered fairly humanely first, but it reflects the power of the symbolism as it has persisted through time, and the conceptual framework that makes it acceptable.
BRAVA!! I so envy you both sharing this incredible experience. You've helped me conjure the old feeling of standing in Her sacred sites with that thin veil of remembering....
Please, please, please, please tell me that the animals were killed before they were dismembered. The burning of animals alive at Laphria turned my stomach. I'm not sure how you can revere such a divinity.
I completely understand your reaction 💔I want to be very clear that I absolutely do not excuse such rituals. As a human being, the dismemberment sacrifice at Lykosoura disturbs me deeply. But as a historian, my responsibility is to present history as it was, in all its complexity. Ancient people, like us, lived within a full spectrum of belief systems. They were not simply worshippers of peaceful, benevolent goddesses and gods. Many of their rites, especially in mystery cults, involved rituals that we today find deeply unsettling, yet they served very real social, psychological, or spiritual purposes in their communities.
It’s important to remember too that even in modern religious traditions, echoes of these ancient sacrificial frameworks remain. For example, when Jesus breaks bread and says, “this is my body… eat of it,” we’re seeing a highly symbolic ritual rooted in a much older world where sacrifice, including the literal consumption of sacrificial flesh, was once common practice. The Christian Eucharist is, of course, metaphorical, but its language still carries traces of that ancient mindset.
I was so shocked to learn about this ritual, but part of my work as a scholar to face these uncomfortable truths, not to glorify them, but to better understand them, and then trace the pattern that shows us where so many of our modern beliefs, symbols, and practices come from.
Artemis was a goddess of nature, and nature is cruel. When a bear or a wolf eats an animal, it doesn't kill it first. It's not nice, but it is the reality of our world.
We cannot judge the past by modern mores. There were no supermarkets to purchase neatly packaged fillets; life was short, harsh, and brutal, and humans not exempt from natural disasters. Unpleasant as it may seem to modern sensibilities, we need to step into that world to truly understand the whys and wherefores. The conceptual frameworks of the deities and the practices associated with them are ultimately human and derive from the realities of life in that context. There are regions of Greece in which ritual animal sacrifice persists - to the new religion - but the practices remain the same. Yes, the animal is slaughtered fairly humanely first, but it reflects the power of the symbolism as it has persisted through time, and the conceptual framework that makes it acceptable.
BRAVA!! I so envy you both sharing this incredible experience. You've helped me conjure the old feeling of standing in Her sacred sites with that thin veil of remembering....
💞💞 thank you!
Please, please, please, please tell me that the animals were killed before they were dismembered. The burning of animals alive at Laphria turned my stomach. I'm not sure how you can revere such a divinity.
I completely understand your reaction 💔I want to be very clear that I absolutely do not excuse such rituals. As a human being, the dismemberment sacrifice at Lykosoura disturbs me deeply. But as a historian, my responsibility is to present history as it was, in all its complexity. Ancient people, like us, lived within a full spectrum of belief systems. They were not simply worshippers of peaceful, benevolent goddesses and gods. Many of their rites, especially in mystery cults, involved rituals that we today find deeply unsettling, yet they served very real social, psychological, or spiritual purposes in their communities.
It’s important to remember too that even in modern religious traditions, echoes of these ancient sacrificial frameworks remain. For example, when Jesus breaks bread and says, “this is my body… eat of it,” we’re seeing a highly symbolic ritual rooted in a much older world where sacrifice, including the literal consumption of sacrificial flesh, was once common practice. The Christian Eucharist is, of course, metaphorical, but its language still carries traces of that ancient mindset.
I was so shocked to learn about this ritual, but part of my work as a scholar to face these uncomfortable truths, not to glorify them, but to better understand them, and then trace the pattern that shows us where so many of our modern beliefs, symbols, and practices come from.
Artemis was a goddess of nature, and nature is cruel. When a bear or a wolf eats an animal, it doesn't kill it first. It's not nice, but it is the reality of our world.