The Nature of Sacred Space in Ancient Greece

Speaker

Betsey A. Robinson, Associate Professor of Roman Art & Architecture, Mediterranean Archaeology at Vanderbilt University

About the Event

It is not uncommon to hear a tourist at the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi exclaim, “you can see why this place was considered sacred,” or “you can still feel the presence of the gods,” when exploring the spectacular site. Current scholarship attributes the location and evolution of ancient Greek sanctuaries to diverse geographic and social factors, often emphasizing the latter. But physical settings and natural features and phenomena certainly shaped and nuanced experiences of the sacred, both at major sanctuaries and at less- or un-developed sites. How far can we, and should we, take concepts of “numinous” or “charismatic” landscapes? This lecture will draw on my ongoing research on mountain sanctuaries—particularly Delphi and the Thespian Valley of the Muses—in the Hellenistic and Roman-imperial eras, a period that brought many challenges to Greece and ever-increasing external involvement. It will explore material and perceptual phenomena within natural and built environments, as understood through archaeology, topography and architecture, landscape and literature.

Global Approaches to Sacred Space is generously funded as part of the SGS Global Research Workshop series with further support from the Department of Religious Studies, the Department of Art and Art History, the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis. Co-organized by Bissera V. Pentcheva and Maria Shevelkina.

Learn more about the Global Approaches to Sacred Space workshop series.