Professor Andrew N. Williams is currently studying for an MA in The Classical Mediterranean (University of Leicester), but is also an established medical practitioner and medical historian. In this post he reflects on the absence of particular types of anatomical votive and how new discoveries from San Casciano dei Bagni (Italy) might shed new light…
Last year, Dr Sally Waite (Senior Lecturer in Classical Archaeology) and Dr Olivia Turner (artist and postdoctoral researcher) at Newcastle University shared with The Votives Project their short film The Way My Body Feels (2022). This showcased some of the work they had been doing with experimental workshops as part of their project on Corporeal…
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…
Becky Brewis is an artist based in Dundee. She has recently devised an art assignment – open to all – which guides participants through making an anatomical votive in response to this time of physical separation. She tells us about the project and how you can take part…
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…
As an artist Garry Barker has gradually evolved an art practice that was initially a response to community needs, such as how to visualise the need for lighting in poorly lit streets or communicating how the community was working to ‘design out crime’; to a practice that visualised stories told to him by people he…
Anne-Lieke Brem has written for The Votives Project before, focusing on votive reliefs as ‘things’ and on specialisation in Greek healing cults. She returns here to share her latest thoughts about the significance of healing landscapes. A few years ago I became intrigued by the Greek Asklepieia and the Amphiareion of Oropos. Not merely by…
Nadja Petersen is a Master’s student at the University of Copenhagen. She is currently writing her thesis on the anatomical votives from the Asclepieion in Corinth. When I began the research for my Master’s thesis in Classical Archaeology, I gathered inspiration from several different sources. I eventually chose the anatomical votives from Asclepieion (fifth and fourth…
Yoshiharu Kamino is Professor at Musashino Art University, and former chief of the university museum and library. He specialises in folklore studies and anthropology, and is currently studying Japanese anatomical votives. Shrines and temples are Japanese people’s spiritual hubs, and can be found everywhere. The former generally serve local deities, and the latter as a…
Maureen Carroll is Professor of Roman Archaeology at the University of Sheffield. Her recent research has focused on infancy and earliest childhood in the Roman world, and she is currently working on a project entitled ‘Mater Matuta and Related Goddesses: Guaranteeing Maternal Fertility and Infant Survival in Early Roman Italy’. In this post she discusses…
Welcome to our first TVP audio interview! Alongside our usual blog posts, we’ll now also run an ‘audio stream’ for sharing informal interviews with friends and colleagues who work on votive offerings (as well as other ‘votive sounds’, from rattly terracottas to religious processions). Please get in touch if you’d like to contribute, or if…
Kristel Henquet is a research masters student in archaeology and ancient history at Free University Amsterdam/University of Amsterdam & Leiden University. She specialises in votive practices and religious landscapes in Southern Italy and in this post she shares some of the research she has recently conducted at the Royal Dutch Institute in Rome. When I…
Anne-Lieke Brem, is currently a Masters student at the University of Groningen, studying both Archaeology and Cultural Geography. Her recent research focuses on the social landscape of illness and disease in ancient Greece (500-200 BC). You can read her earlier post on the biography of ancient votive reliefs as ‘things’ here. While broadening my research, I…
Helen King is Professor Emerita in Classical Studies at the Open University. She has a particular interest in midwifery and gynaecology and has published widely on ancient medicine and its reception, as well as gender and the history of the body. Is it time to revisit the identification of votive body parts? Specifically, votive wombs;…
Anne-Lieke Brem, is currently a Masters student at the University of Groningen, studying both Archaeology and Cultural Geography. Her recent research focuses on the social landscape of illness and disease in ancient Greece (500-200 BC). In this article for The Votives Project she reflects on how this project has prompted her to think more critically about the biography and…
Bodies of Evidence: Ancient Anatomical Votives Past, Present and Future is a new edited volume just published by Routledge as part of a new series on ‘Medicine and the Body in Antiquity’. The volume, edited by Jane Draycott (University of Glasgow) and Emma-Jayne Graham (The Open University / The Votives Project), is based on a…
At the risk of over-sharing, I’ve had a few health issues over the last year (I’m fine!) that have made me think in new ways about how we understand what ancient anatomical votives might tell us about how people understood their bodies and their relationship with divine healers. In the ancient world it seems to…
Often, on holiday, I seek out the sacred wells, the ribbon-tied trees and the chapels full of objects and notes asking for help or giving thanks. Out of curiosity, plain nosiness; I’m drawn to the glimpse into another’s life, or death. Why is that? Do I find comfort that someone else has it worse than…
Did ancient anatomical votives actually work?
The Votives Project 