Events > Blood
Scene from an Attic black-figure amphora showing the sacrifice of Polyxena, c. 570-550 BCE. Now in the collections of the British Museum. © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons
A seminar and discussion about material religion and blood. This online event will include talks by Professor Gunnel Ekroth and Dr Jack Lennon.
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Talk Abstracts
Blood in ancient Greek religion - Professor Gunnel Ekroth
This presentation will explore the use and meaning of blood in ancient Greek religion. Animal sacrifice was the most important ritual for the ancient Greeks and every such occasion would thus result in blood. The handling of the blood was closely related to the kind of ritual performed and its particular aims, but also to where the sacrifice took place and who participated. Blood was also closely related to the meat of the sacrificial animal, and its consumption, as well as notions of the raw and the cooked. I will discuss the practical handling of the blood in sacrificial contexts with particular emphasis on how it is depicted and how the imagery brings out the different aspects of the blood as a ritual commodity.
Looking for Bad Blood in Roman Religion - Dr Jack Lennon
Blood played an integral role in various forms of religious activity in ancient Rome. Nevertheless, there also appear to have been a number of contexts within Roman religion in which blood could be presented as somehow bad or otherwise out of place. In this session I will consider some of the ways in which blood within Roman religion could be perceived as dangerous, undesirable, or indicative of divine anger, as well as considering the ways in which some later Christian authors sought to harness such ideas to attack the practice of blood sacrifice.