COLONIAL RELIGION AND INDIGENOUS SOCIETY IN THE ARCHAIC WEST MEDITERRANEAN ...

386 Pages·2010·4.13 MB·English

COLONIAL RELIGION AND INDIGENOUS SOCIETY
IN THE ARCHAIC WEST MEDITERRANEAN: c. 750-400 BCE
A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS
AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES
OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Lela Manning Urquhart
March 2010
© 2010 by Lela Manning Urquhart. All Rights Reserved.

Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-

Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/

This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/fv818dt6086

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I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate
in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Ian Morris, Primary Adviser
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate
in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Giovanna Ceserani
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate
in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Richard Martin
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate
in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Josiah Ober
Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies.
Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost Graduate Education
This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in
electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file in
University Archives.
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Abstract
This dissertation addresses the question of how indigenous socieites in the west
Mediterrranean responded to colonial religion between 750 and 400 BCE and the role such
responses played in the socio-political development of the Mediterranean basin. Focusing on the
archaeological evidence from two case study regions in Sicily and Sardinia, it attempts to explain
the appearance of new religious elements at indigenous sites after 750 BCE. Building on
research on the role of religion in archaic Greek poleis, it argues that indigenous communities
integrated aspects of colonial religious material culture and practice that supported high levels of
social accessibility and collectivity in the community. These forms of religious expression were
used to resolve “coordination problems” posed by the new political, economic, and demographic
pressures of colonization. It concludes that certain forms of “colonial” religious expression,
most of which had parallels in Greek colonies and were absent from Phoenician colonies,
worked to the advantage of indigenous communities, particularly as they were drawn into
broader cultural and socio-political networks developing across the Mediterranean.
Chapter 1 introduces the scholarly background of the project, particularly as it relates to
postcolonial theory and studies of ancient religion. It also lays out three hypotheses that are used
as potential explanations for the patterns seen in the archaeological record of religious change.
The first proposes that the changes were part of a widespread process of cultural diffusionism,
while the second suggests that changes in indigenous religion were a function of the density of
colonization. A third hypothesis proposes seeing the changes as the selective integration of
particular features of colonial religion. The chapter also engages with the question of how to
study “religion” archaeologically and lays out a methodological tool-kit for the investigation of
religious change. This tool-kit centers on 13 material correlates that are then applied as a means
of heuristically organizing and quantifying the archaeological evidence for religious
development in the different case study regions.
Chapter 2 delves into the historiography of the “Hellenization versus postcolonialism
debate.” Postcolonial treatments of the ancient west Mediterranean have reacted against the
“traditional” Hellenization model, arguing that the latter was heavily biased towards the
perspective of (mostly Greek) colonizersl; they propose models of cultural change that instead
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stress fluidity, hybridity, and constructed meanings. Chapter 2 shows that, contrary to their
representation in the postcolonial literature, treatments of religious change hold a unique position
in the Hellenization historiography. It argues that even among the staunchest proponents of
Hellenization, religion was construed as traditional, actively resistant to colonial influence, and
sometimes influencing Greek colonial religion. It traces this historiographic trend back to a long-
standing interest in indigenous culture amongst European scholars whose roots, it argues, can be
seen as early as the sixteenth century. This exception in the historiography has been overlooked
and, consequently, the archaeological record for religious developments during the Archaic and
Classical periods has often been misread.
! Chapters 3 and 4 show that indigenous societies in Sicily (Ch. 3) and Sardinia (Ch. 4)
experienced a dramatic change in the material expression of their religious beliefs after
colonization (post-650 BCE). In Sicily, indigenous communities increasingly dedicated places
for the worship of the gods. Between 650 and 550 BCE, the form that these places took went
quickly from open-air ritual sites to built spaces, vacillating mainly between two architectural
types, curvilinear “hut-shrines” and rectilinear bi- or tri-partite structures. Chapter 3 argues
further that both the construction of spaces specially designed for ritual activity, and the
proliferation of certain religious practices-- sacrifice, feasting, and the dedication of relatively
modest votive goods--signal a major shift in the role of religious institutions within indigenous
communities. It then shows that around 525 BCE, many of the older strongholds of indigenous
ritual life and settlement started to decline while others grew tremendously. This pattern
continued into the fifth century BCE, in a process that strongly resembles synoikism.
Chapter 4 looks at how indigenous societies responded more specifically to Phoenician
colonial religion; framed another way, it functions as a test of whether the presence of Greek
colonists (and thus, Greek religion) was a necessary condition for particular types of religious
development. Precolonial Sardinian religious organization shows an unusual level of internal
consistency and visibility and appears to have been intricately tied up in the power structures of
nuragic society. Chapter 4 shows that Sardinian indigenous religious sites were increasingly
abandoned at roughly the same time that Phoenicians settled on the southern and western coasts
of the island. Signs of the integration of Phoenician religious material culture or practices are
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rare, and for the few indigenous sanctuaries that continued into the late Archaic and Classical
periods, there is little concrete support for “Phoenicianization” or “Punicization.” Thus, where in
Sicily there seems to have been an increase in the visibility of and investment towards religious
behavior following the arrival of Greeks and Phoenicians, in Sardinia the opposite seems to have
happened.
Chapter 5 examines three Greek colonies in central-western Sicily--Himera, Selinus, and
Akragas-- and shows that each engaged in an extensive intrastate competition of temple-building
between 650 and 400 BCE. Investments in religious architecture were accompanied by a
growing standardization in religious practice, particularly in sacrificial and votive behavior. The
chapter argues that Greek religious evidence can be understood as the material expression of
community solidarity and the promotion of collective potential and of relative social equilibrium
and religious cohesion. It emphasizes, however, that smaller, more exclusive social groups were
embedded in the polis (and its symbolic forms of self-representation). It concludes that collective
efforts to monumentalize the sacred character of the cities belie significant fractures in the ritual
communities of each city, as evidenced both by the number of sanctuaries and the variation in
their material assemblages.
! Chapter 6 synthesizes the evidence from Phoenician sanctuaries in Sicily and Sardinia,
showing that there are significant disparities within the two regions even while an underlying
unity of religious concepts, practice, and symbolic iconography, particularly from the sixth
century on, seems to have existed. In comparison to the Greek settlements, Phoenician
settlements invested significantly less in religion, although individual citizens may have been
equally or more wealthy than their Greek counterparts. Chapter 6 argues that Phoenician
religious organization more strongly emphasized individual piety and that its material culture and
practice heavily favored the more exclusive participation of wealthier and high-status citizens.
Evidence for collective worship is less readily identifiable in the material record than at both
Greek and indigenous communities. Moreover, when it is identifiable, it seems to reiterate the
notion that inclusion in the “civic” body was determined by familial lineage and aristocratic
status.
The evidence presented in Chapters 3-6 shows that there were major changes in the
religious organization of west Mediterranean societies at the end of the Iron Age. Chapter 7
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returns to the three hypotheses that were set out at the beginning of the dissertation as possible
explanations for why indigenous societies responded to colonial religion the way that they did. It
shows that although both the conditions of the diffusionism and density of colonization theses
are met to some degree, neither of these two hypotheses fully explains the patterns in the
evidence, particularly as to why some parts of colonial religious material culture and practice
appear over and over again and others do not. To explain this part of the evidence, only the
selective integration hypothesis seems to work. The evidence also suggests that the material
culture and practices associated with Greek sanctuaries were integrated far more often than those
associated with Phoenician settlements. It is proposed that the reason for the differential
integration of Greek and Phoenician colonial religious elements lies in the preference indigenous
societies had for forms of expression that promoted communal cohesion, social accessibility, and
collective power, all qualities which have appear to have more correspondence with the ideals
and representational forms found in Greek colonial sacred areas than Phoenician.
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Acknowledgements
! I owe a wealth of gratitude to may people for their help, support, and general goodness in
completing this project and through all the phases of its construction. I want to thank in
particular, however, my advisor, Ian Morris, without whose guidance this project would have
hardly evolved the way that it did. His knowledge bolstered it from the very beginning, his
criticism kept it honest, and his support kept me sane. I thank him heartily for everything he has
done to help me with this and with all the other aspects of my graduate education. I’d also like to
especially thank Richard Martin, Josh Ober, and Giovanna Ceserani, who read several drafts of
the material and whose provocative questions alternatively inspired and challenged my thinking
about the material. They have been loyal reading committee members since this project was only
a proposal and their patience and support has been remarkable. Of course, any errors are solely
my responsibility.
! Thanks should also go to the faculties and staffs of both the Stanford Classics department
and the Stanford Archaeology Center. Their involvement in my education at Stanford has been
formative to the choices I made while writing and exposed me to a wide range of comparative
primary and secondary material from time periods and parts of the world outside the ancient west
Mediterranean. The staff members-- particularly Ryan Johnson, Alicia Sanchez, Margo Keeley,
and Lori Lynn Taniguchi-- are equally in my debt.
! A substantial part of this project addresses the question of how different groups create
bonds of community in situations of cultural interaction, demographic and political pressure, and
rapid social change. So, it seems apt that some of my greatest thanks should go towards the
colleagues and friends that I have had the good fortune of having throughout graduate school and
to the various communities of which I’ve been a part. My research benefitted in innumerable
ways from their input and by own well-being has been sustained by their friendship. Particularly
important to me have been my colleagues in the Classics department and Archaeology center,
the members of the Stanford Humanities Center in 2008-2009, the Fellows of the American
Academy in Rome in 2009-2010, and the many participants of the Monte Polizzo Archaeological
Project. Among these I should especially thank: Jason Aftosmis, Rachel Ahern Knudsen, Melissa
Bailey, Kathryn Balsley, Emma Blake, Meritxell Ferrer-Martin, Christelle Fischer-Bovet, Brien
Garnand, Emily Modrall, Martin Perron, Kathryn Lafrenz-Samuels, Joshua Samuels, Rob
Stephan, Matthew Tiews, Darian Totten, Nick Wilding, and Caroline Winterer.
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The care and humor given to me by the people who had to deal with me on a more
regular basis bolstered this project through its completion. For this, I will always be grateful to
Clara, Alexis, and Ben. Most of all, none of this would have been possible without the love,
encouragement, and wisdom of my parents, Helen and Burges. This work is dedicated to them.
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Contents
Abstract iv
Acknowledgements vii
Table of Contents x
List of Tables xii
List of Figures xii
I. Introduction 11
Introduction 11
The argument 21
The case studies: Sicily and Sardinia 28
“Religion”: terminology and theoretical dilemmas 38
Theory and methods 48
II. Indigenous religion and religious change in the Hellenization historiography 57
Introduction 57
The west Mediterranean in early scholarship 60
The 18th- and 19th-century scholarship: Hellenism, archaeology, and religion 66
The late 19th and 20th century: the development of Hellenization theory and the
postcolonial reaction 76
Conclusion 97
III. The Development of Indigenous Sicilian Religion: pre-700 BCE to 400 BCE 102
Introduction 102
The indigenous setting prior to 650 BCE 103
The funerary evidence 105
a. The Geloan hinterland 106
b. The Salso and lower Himera valley area 109
c. The Platani valley and the central interior 111
d. The Belice valley 117
e. Western and northwestern Sicily 118
The non-funerary evidence 120
Summary 123
The transformation of indigenous Sicilian religion: 650-400 BCE 124
650 to 600 BCE 125
600 to 550 BCE 135
550 to 500 BCE 142
500 to 450 BCE 153
450 to 400 BCE 160
Conclusions 164
IV. Religious developments in indigenous central-southwestern Sardinia, 950-400 BCE 171
Introduction 171
The indigenous setting prior to 750-700 BCE 173
Sulcis-Iglesiente 180
The lower-central Campidano 182
The upper Campidano and the Marmilla 184
The ‘Giara’ and the central interior 188
The Gulf of Oristano, the Stagno di Cabras, and hinterland 194
Summary 198
Indigenous Sardinian Religious Organization after 700 BCE 200
Conclusions 210
V. Greek colonial religion in central-western Sicily: religion and the creation of colonial
poleis 215
Introduction 215
Historical background and religious developments between 650 and 550 BCE 216
The “Age of Sanctuaries”: religious developments between 550 and 480/70 BCE 225
Religious developments between 480/70 BCE and the end of the fifth century 240
Discussion 247
Early developments 248
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