Bones in Greek sanctuaries: answers and questions

Abstract

The paper begins by surveying some old problems in the study of Greek ritual to which the zooarchaeological evidence has brought answers, or at any rate illuminating new perspectives (sacrifice to Herakles on Thasos, and Herakles’ identity there; sacrifice at Kalapodi/Hyampolis). The focus then shifts to the attestation by the bones of the eating of “nonsacrificable” species of animal in sanctuaries, suggesting that we ought at least to reckon with the possibility that such consumption was common, that sacrificable animals too were not uncommonly eaten without being sacrificed, and that in general the Greeks may have been less scrupulous about sacrificial feasting, and about meat-eating in general, than modern scholars have tended to suppose. It may be that in this sphere, as (I have argued elsewhere) in others, the sacrality of the central ritual “tapered off ” quite sharply, and that the banqueting, like festival events such as parades, markets, athletics, and dramatic and musical performances, was in practice felt to be essentially “secular”.