Anatomical Votives Research Articles

When bodies fall apart

Anatomical votives have largely been considered by scholars in connection with Roman expansion in Central Italy. Within this ‘religious romanization’ frame, scholars have viewed the presence of the anatomical terracottas of the 4th–2nd cc. BC as the material manifestation of Roman presence in the religious sphere of the Italian peninsula. This paper presents the results from recent and ongoing archaeological studies on pre-Roman sanctuaries in Central and Northern Italian and focuses on the presence of bronze body parts among their votive offerings. The data allows for a reconsideration of the influence of Rome on local religious traditions and sheds light on the mechanism of continuity and change after the Roman expansion.

A Material Culture of Medieval Disability: Contextualising Norwegian Votive Offerings

In this paper, the potential for material culture studies within the history of disability is explored through a study of preserved anatomical votives from medieval Norway left in connection with miraculous healing practices. The Norwegian votives, which include wooden body parts of hands, arms, finger, feet and legs as well as mobility aids, are here related to the lived experience of the physically impaired. Anatomical votives have been interpreted as meaningful depictions of how an individual conceptualised the body part in question, which they sought healing for. Through a posthumanist approach, anatomical votives can, however, not only be seen as solely representational of a body part but as material extensions of the body. Preserved mobility aids, here identified as hand-trestles and a knee-brace, provide insight into the availability of aids for individuals with lower limb impairments in the medieval North. The study of the material culture of disability can elucidate cultural notions of disability in relation to physical impairment. While written miracle accounts have been identified as important sources for the study of medieval disability, their associated material culture is here presented as important data for the embodied experience of the physically impaired in medieval Norway.

BODIES OF EVIDENCE: ANCIENT ANATOMICAL VOTIVES PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. Edited by JaneDraycott and Emma‐JayneGraham. Medicine and the Body in Antiquity. London and New York: Routledge, 2017. Pp. xiv + 271. Hardcover, $149.95.

BODIES OF EVIDENCE: ANCIENT ANATOMICAL VOTIVES PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. Edited by JaneDraycott and Emma‐JayneGraham. Medicine and the Body in Antiquity. London and New York: Routledge, 2017. Pp. xiv + 271. Hardcover, $149.95.

Анатомические вотивы античного Средиземноморья: культурно-исторический феномен представления биологического и медицинского знания (по литературным данным)

Анатомические вотивы античного Средиземноморья: культурно-исторический феномен представления биологического и медицинского знания (по литературным данным)

Bodies of Evidence. Ancient Anatomical Votives Past, Present and Future

The papers presented in this volume are the result of the conference Bodies of Evidence: Re-defining Approaches to the Anatomical Votives that was held at the British School in Rome in 2012. Additional papers area also included

Bodies of Evidence: Ancient Anatomical Votives Past, Present and Future ed. by Jane Draycott and Emma-Jayne Graham

Reviewed by: Bodies of Evidence: Ancient Anatomical Votives Past, Present and Future ed. by Jane Draycott and Emma-Jayne Graham Rebecca Miller Ammerman Jane Draycott and Emma-Jayne Graham, eds. Bodies of Evidence: Ancient Anatomical Votives Past, Present and Future. Medicine and the Body in Antiquity. Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2017. xvi + 271 pp. Ill. $149.95 (978-1-4724-5080-7). Models or images of human anatomy dedicated in a sacred place in order to communicate with the divine are the subject of this volume. The ritual offering of a gift may represent an individual's request to a deity for assistance or an expression of thanks for services already received. In ancient (as well as contemporary) sanctuaries the redundant accumulation of such votive objects represents the collective faith of a community. This volume is similarly a collection: seven essays were first presented at a conference at the British School in Rome in 2012, and two additional essays and an introduction were added by the editors; two more essays and an afterword were specifically petitioned. This assemblage of scholarly studies presents a varied range of votive objects that refer to different parts of the human body and furnish a broad geographical and chronological panorama of the phenomenon. The goal of both the conference and volume is to move beyond typological analysis of anatomical votives to propose new perspectives that are often influenced by theoretical approaches focused on reception, the body, personhood, and so on. Such perspectives aim, in turn, to enhance the debate regarding what meanings the maker, dedicator, or subsequent observer of the votive gift may attach to the ritual offering of an object in metal, stone, terracotta, wood, or wax that is a physical analogue of the human body or body part. Certainly, these essays, which examine material culture that reflects the intersection of ancient concepts of the body, health, healing, ritual practice, religious belief, and social order, are of interest for the history of medicine. The introductory chapter by Jane Draycott and Emma-Jayne Graham provides a valuable survey of the study of anatomical votives, thoughtfully divided into sections dealing with definitions of terms, contexts of votive practice, history of scholarship, extent of the use of anatomical votives in time and space, new [End Page 374] approaches, and future developments. (The punning headings that introduce each section enliven the discussion and cheerfully encourage readers to put their best foot forward and read on.) Only a handful of ancient votive anatomical models preserve an inscription that gives voice to an otherwise verbally silent artifact. For this reason, the case study by Justine Potts on the "confession" stelai from Phrygia and Lydia of the second and third centuries CE is of particular importance because the inscriptions on these stelai verbalize the intent and motivation of the dedicator. The inscription acknowledges a wrongdoing for which the health of the dedicator was divinely punished. Some inscriptions indicate that dedication of the stele aims to expiate this offence and propitiate the deity who is believed to be responsible for the punishment; others announce that the stele serves as a thankful commemoration of a cure. Comparison with the imagery and inscriptions of votive stelai that do not specifically designate a transgression reveals shared visual and textual languages and thus calls into question the validity of boundaries set by scholars to distinguish between the "confession" stelai and other votive objects. By comparing assemblages from Republican Italy with those of Roman Imperial Gaul, Olivier de Cazanove illustrates the vast spatial and chronological dimensions of the Roman practice of dedicating anatomical ex votos. Dating of anatomical votives in Italy is rarely exact and de Cazanove outlines evidence at a number of sites for revising the dates downward. The precise dates provided by dendrochronology for wooden offerings from several locations in France to Augustan, Tiberian, and early Flavian periods are thus intriguing and have important implications for the process of "Romanization." Many essays concentrate on representations of a specific part of the human body: hair (Jane Draycott), eyes (Georgia Petridou), feet (Sara Chiarini), genitalia (Jen Grove), wombs (Rebecca Fleming), internal organs (Laurent Haumesser), and images of swaddled infants that are closely associated with anatomical models (Fay...

Popular Medicine in Graeco-Roman Antiquity: Explorations by W. V. Harris

Reviewed by: Popular Medicine in Graeco-Roman Antiquity: Explorations by W. V. Harris Aileen R. Das W. V. Harris. Popular Medicine in Graeco-Roman Antiquity: Explorations. Leiden: Brill, 2016. xv + 319 pp. Ill. $138.00 (978-90-04-32558-6). This edited volume, which comes out of a conference held at Columbia University on April 18–19, 2014, aims to redress the "pervasive if not unanimous refusal" (p. vii) in scholarship on ancient medicine to examine systematically "popular medicine."* In the preface, this gap is attributed to the fact that the bulk of evidence concerns "elite/learned/rationalistic" medicine (p. vii) and to some scholars' apparent denial of popular medicine's existence. The thirteen chapters in the collection describe the practices and practitioners often associated with the sphere of "popular medicine" across the expanse of Greco-Roman antiquity—from the classical period to late antiquity. While the introduction argues for a "dividing line" (p. 15) between "rationalistic" and "popular" medicine, the contributions in the volume appear to undercut this position. "Popular medicine" is a monolithic term that suggests a distinctive approach to health care. The chapters in this book, however, highlight the difficulty of pinning down exactly what makes a practice or practitioner "popular." A range of synonyms are used in the essays of this volume to gloss the meaning of "popular," including "widespread" (p. 90), "medico-magical" (p. 128), "traditional" (p. 11), "folk" (p. 65), "native" (p. 163), "civilian" (p. 225), "religious" (p. 95), "lay" (p. 148), and "practical" (p. 93). As certain chapters show, some of these words apply to popular medicine only in specific contexts. For instance, in her chapter on "Representations of the Physician in Jewish Literature," Catherine Hezser argues that the Palestinian rabbis distinguished popular modes of healing, which they connected with magic and idolatry, from their own participation in religious medicine, which was guided by halakhah. Therefore, in their culture, "religious" and "popular" practices of medicine are not synonymous, even if they sometimes overlapped. Several of the chapters try to reach a workable definition of popular medicine through antithesis: it is "non-elite" (p. 46) rather than elite; "irrational" (p. 199) rather than rational; "non-scientific" (p. 199) as opposed to scientific; and unorthodox as opposed to "orthodox" (p. 15). Laurence Totelin makes the judicious point that the dividing line between, for example, the orthodox and the unorthodox "depends on where one stands" (p. 78). She explains that to popular [End Page 372] practitioners such as drug sellers, the complicated theories of the elite doctor Galen may appear marginal or even unorthodox. Accordingly, the contingency of such negative definitions suggests that ancient sources and communities may have held conflicting views of what constituted "popular medicine." Citing the plurality and fluidity of healing practices in Greco-Roman antiquity, Vivian Nutton understandably raises doubts about the value of categories such as "popular" and "folk" medicine (p. 272). Rebecca Flemming comes to a similar conclusion in her illuminating study of anatomical votives, which was a socially inclusive phenomenon in the Roman world. She advises that the disappearance of anatomical ex-votos from Italy from the early first century BCE should not be interpreted as a sign of "mortal" (p. 123) medicine's victory over divine (perhaps "popular") cures. Rather, as she notes, the healing options after this period expanded in a "non-exclusive and often collaborative way" (p. 123). Therefore, this sharing of medical knowledge begs the question whether it is sensible to speak of a "popular" medicine in contrast to a "high" medicine. Social inclusivity is also a theme of David Leith's examination of the diffusion of sectarian (e.g., Empiricist and Methodist) medicine. His contribution challenges the assumption that sectarian medicine is "high" medicine (p. 231) because its practitioners treated elite patients in provincial capitals. He demonstrates that, while students may have traveled to urban centers such as Alexandria to learn from famous heresiarchs, most were not able to achieve the same degree of success among wealthy clientele as their instructors. Thus, for financial reasons, they returned to their own hometowns. Leith utilizes papyrological and epigraphical evidence to reveal how some pupils of sectarian medicine lived in small villages far away from major cities...

Draycott, Jane, and Emma-Jayne Graham (eds.): Bodies of Evidence. Ancient Anatomical Votives Past, Present, and Future

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Bodies of Evidence: Ancient Anatomical Votives Past, Present and Future. Edited by JaneDraycott and Emma‐JayneGraham. Medicine and the Body in Antiquity. London: Routledge, 2017. Pp. xiv + 271. $149.95.

Bodies of Evidence: Ancient Anatomical Votives Past, Present and Future. Edited by JaneDraycott and Emma‐JayneGraham. Medicine and the Body in Antiquity. London: Routledge, 2017. Pp. xiv + 271. $149.95.

'Souvenirs of the Self': Personal Belongings as Votive Offerings in Ancient Religion

Many of the votive offerings which survive from antiquity were purpose-made for dedication. These include things like anatomical votives, figurines, temple models, and sculpted reliefs bearing scenes of sacrifice or healing. Other types of votive offer- ing were not purpose-made for dedication but had served other functions before being brought to the sanctuary, such as jewellery, tools, mirrors, cups, clothes and children’s toys. Such ‘recycled’ (or, perhaps more accurately, ‘non-purpose-made’) votives arguably give us our most direct glimpses of individual agency in a religious context, since they not only bypass the intermediary figure of the craftsman but also relate closely to the worshipper’s own body and biography. This article considers the archaeological and literary evidence for such ‘non-purpose-made’ offerings, particu- larly those related to illness or healing – the theme of this special issue. I consider how these boundary-crossing objects differed conceptually from purpose-made votives like the anatomicals, for instance by entangling the different spaces (the house, workshop, sanctuary) in which ancient religion was experienced. Ultimately, I argue that the appropriation and re-use of household objects or medical parapher- nalia as votives enabled the individual to respond quickly and creatively to illness and other crises, creating deeply personal narratives of healing and transformation from the layered associations and memories that these objects embodied.