Dr Sally Waite is Senior Lecturer in Classical Archaeology and Dr Olivia Turner is an artist and postdoctoral researcher, both at Newcastle University. Sally’s research focuses primarily on Attic red-figure pottery and the history of collecting and collections, working closely with the Shefton Collection of Greek and Etruscan Archaeology at the Great North Museum: Hancock. Olivia is…
Readers of The Votives Project might be interested to learn about the publication of a new book by one of the website’s co-founders. Reassembling Religion in Roman Italy (Routledge, 2021) by Emma-Jayne Graham focuses on ancient material religion, and among other things chapters feature discussions of sanctuaries and anatomical votives in ancient Italy, as well…
Ceri Houlbrook is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Manchester Love-locks are exactly what the title suggests: padlocks purchased and employed worldwide as statements of romantic commitment. Typically a couple (often tourists), having inscribed their names/initials on a padlock, will attach it to the railings of a bridge or other structure, and will…
Anne Katrine de Hemmer Gudme is Professor with special responsibilities at the University of Copenhagen. These past couple of weeks, I have been working on a paper on Aramaic dedicatory inscriptions containing a remembrance formula which I am going to present at the ARAM Society’s conference on sacrifices and offerings in the ancient Near East…
Katherine M. Erdman has recently completed her doctorate at the Department of Anthropology, University of Minnesota. The Source of the Douix, a freshwater spring situated within the town of Châtillon-sur-Seine, has been visited by local inhabitants for the past 2,500 years. While there is a strong tradition of spring veneration in eastern France during the Gallo-Roman period…
Paul-François Tremlett is Lecturer in Religious Studies at The Open University, UK From 1999-2000 and again in 2003 and 2009 I conducted field work on the slopes of Mount Banahaw among religious movements venerating the Filipino national hero José Rizal as the Filipino Christ, and healers who regard the mountain as a site of spiritual…
Gina Salapata is Senior Lecturer in Classical Studies at Massey University, New Zealand. I have recently studied an aspect of votive practice that has so far remained unexplored: small offerings acquired, dedicated and displayed in multiples. There is a tacit assumption that each dedicant offered only one votive offering on a particular occasion. But nothing…
Peter Stewart is Director of the Classical Art Research Centre and Associate Professor in Classical Art and Archaeology in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Oxford. In the first posting on this blog, Jessica Hughes mentioned an intriguing case of ephemeral votives — the sort of offering that leaves no traces for archaeologists to…
Jen Grove is an ancient historian, researcher and workshop facilitator at makinglearning. In this blog post, she discusses recreating the ancient practice of votive-making with the public Hanging my Heart is a community project inspired by the ancient practice of votive-giving. Since their modern discovery across the ancient Greek and Roman world, hoards of little objects at shrines and temples…
Professor Jean MacIntosh Turfa is a Consulting Scholar in the Mediterranean Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, where she helped reinstall the Kyle M. Phillips Etruscan Gallery. She has participated in excavations at Etruscan Poggio Civitate (Murlo), ancient Corinth, Dragonby (Lincolnshire), and native and colonial sites in the USA. She…
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