Beyond Skin-deep: Considering the pig in ancient Greece through the particularities of its skin

Abstract

The complexity of the pig in Greek antiquity can be traced through the rich vocabulary applied to various porcine animals. This extends to cultural, religious, and symbolic meanings imbedded into the perceived anomalousness of this animal. The religious and ideological role of the pig in antiquity and beyond has been widely studied, but little scholarly attention has been paid to the skin of the animal in ancient studies. In this article pigskin is discussed on two levels, namely practical and conceptual/symbolic. The starting point is the fact that the structure of pigskin is different in comparison to any other mammal skin (with the exception of human skin). The overall purpose is to provide new insights into the skin as an explanatory category which can contribute towards our understanding of the treatment of pigs in Greek antiquity as well as the attitudes towards them and the esteem in which they were held. In the first part of the article the terminological issues pertaining to pigs and pigskin are scrutinised; in the second part sacrificial procedures are looked at more closely through a comparison between a pig sacrifice and a ‘standard’ sacrifice of a non-porcine animal, with a focus on flaying and singeing; in the third part the negative connotations of pigskin as diseased and ‘lepraic’ are considered. Finally, this leads to the last part of the article which considers the socio-cultural and historiographical association of leprosy with pig(skin) as a reason for cultural and social exclusion.