Orphic Gold Research Articles

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Orphic Gold Tablets.The Orphics (ὀρφικοί) were a religious movement originating sometime in the 7th–6th centuries BC in ancient Greece, but was gradually formed and evolved, adopting various elements from surrounding religious movements and cults. Its emergence was probably a result of various preconditions, but what is safely known is that it pioneered a so-called positive eschatology and offered the hope of afterlife communion with the heroes and gods. To affirm the hope of a positive afterlife, the dead were placed in their graves with golden petals on their chest or on their head, often in the shape of an ivy leaf, containing instruction on navigation in the underworld and how to get past its guardians to the coveted kingdom of Persephone. The texts also contained passwords that were supposed to ensure entry between the heroes and gods and meant a certain degree of deification of the dead. It is believed that sometime in the middle of his life – after the death of Socrates – even Plato himself joined this movement, and in his later works began to speak of the gods with greater respect and to elaborate more deeply on the fate of the soul after death. In his texts, some typical Orphic expressions appear. Orphism as a “revival movement” may also have had some influence on the formation of Christian eschatology. In any case, with its positive eschatology, it may have enabled the Christian mission to penetrate more effectively into the thought and beliefs of people of the time who, expected in their personal lives the positive eschatology that the Apostolic Church proclaimed and gradually completed.

A Syntactic Approach to the Orphic Gold Leaves

AbstractThe present paper provides a plausible interpretation of how a variety of literary elements and religious practices can augment our current understanding of ancient Orphism, although all of the sources seem to reflect a common religious function. The analysis is primarily based on close readings and deals with textual interpretation only as much as is necessary in order to highlight the intrinsic relations of textual constructions on the compositional, syntactical, and grammatical level. By focusing on structural relations, this syntactic approach enables us to integrate all the diverse emic interpretations on the basis of functional rules, while restraining us from the problem of interpreting surface meanings. The primary sources of the paper are specifically the A and D type Orphic gold leaves, because the structuring of these texts follows a common compositional pattern that seems to allude to a “model experience.” Using this “model experience” paradigm, this paper also aims to exceed the contemporary neo-ritualist interpretations of these texts as mere “ritual representations” and to propose a more holistic approach based on functionality. This is accomplished by separating formulaic components and treating them as contextualization cues which refer to the different stages that the initiate embodies, in an interdiscursive textual composition.

Utopian Motifs in Early Greek Concepts of the Afterlife

AbstractThis paper explores the use of utopian motifs in early Greek concepts of the afterlife. The notion of a paradisiacal existence for selected heroes after death is widespread in Greek thought, going back at least as far as Hesiod, and appearing in such diverse sources as Pindar, the Orphic gold leaves, Attic comedy, and Lucian. Such idyllic afterlives share various features common to Lewis Mumford’s ‘utopias of escape’ (The Story of Utopias, London, 1922, 15), such as the absence of pain and toil, plentiful and self-supplying food and drink, the company of one’s peers, and so forth. They also share the utopian ideals of selective and restricted citizenship – although the requirements for entry may vary. The popularity of eschatological utopias is associated with the theme of a lost ‘Golden Age’ and the consequent assumption of the inevitable decline of human societies. Although often regarded as escapist fantasies, eschatological utopias do react, often critically, to perceived issues in the societies that constructed them. Their unreal nature is regarded as problematic, and through their association with Kronos and the Golden Age they exemplify the dangers ofanomia.But they also provide a means by which an individual can preserve his consciousness and identity in death.

GOING BEYOND MULTITEXTS: THE ARCHETYPE OF THE ORPHIC GOLD LEAVES

In his magisterial work Persephone, Zuntz drew a basic distinction between two sets of Orphic gold leaves—those known from the elaborate tumuli at Thurii, which he called Group A, and a more widely scattered series, Group B, then represented by two longer texts from Petelia in southern Italy and Pharsalus in Thessaly, and, in a shortened form, by a series of six (now seven) short texts from the environs of Eleutherna in Crete (his Group C). Three further finds have reinforced Zuntz's distinctions: first, a tablet from Hipponium, the colony of Epizephyrian Locri in southern Italy, published by Foti and Pugliese Carratelli, then a lamella said to be from Thessaly but now in Malibu and published by Breslin, and finally a tablet said to be from Entella in Sicily and recently in Geneva, which was published in a bad transcription by Frel and much clarified by Riedweg. The first and third belong to Zuntz's Group B, while the second is close to his Group C. Pugliese Carratelli has published an exceptionally fine set of photographs of all the texts except those from Petelia and Entella. My restudy of the leaf from Petelia has led to some improved readings. Not even a drawing exists of the Entellan leaf, which no scholar except its first editor has ever seen. This fact prompted a reviewer of this article to wonder about its authenticity. In the absence of the object itself, such doubts can only be allayed if its text consistently contributes to improving our understanding of the archetype from which it is derived. One of the aims of this article is to show that it does indeed do so.

Near Eastern Precedents of the “Orphic” Gold Tablets: The Phoenician Missing Link

The Greek Gold Tablets (also called “Orphic Gold Tablets”), have often been compared with Egyptian funerary texts, especially those comprising theBook of the Dead. At the same time, North-West Semitic gold and silver leaves (Phoenician-Punic and Hebrew) with protective formulae offer a close parallel to them in aspects of their function and form. Although this group of funerary amulets are also said to follow Egyptian models, the three corpora have never been discussed together. Egyptian afterlife motifs and magical technologies may have indirectly influenced Greek Orphic funerary ideas and practices. I suggest, however, that this transmission happened through adaptations of Egyptian materials in the Phoenician-Punic realm, with evidence pointing to southern Italy and Sicily (Magna Graecia) as likely scenarios for this exchange. Intersections between Orphic and Phoenician cosmogony and the selective use of Egyptian iconography in Phoenician funerary amulets reinforce this hypothesis.

The Construction of Inner Religious Space in Wandering Religion of Classical Greece

In classical Greece, different kinds of itinerant purifiers are well known mainly through hostile descriptions (Plato, Demosthenes) and sometimes also through some evidence from inside (Empedocles, Orphic gold tablets). However, both perspectives coincide in showing that such wandering “priests” aimed to construe a transportable sacred space, attached to specific people rather than to any specific location. Thus, sacred places could easily turn into metaphorical images for inner states. The main mechanisms of such construction are: creating conceptual boundaries which separate the initiate from the profane; depicting imaginary spaces of purity and impurity at both sides of the boundary; and imagining ways of spatial change from the impure to the pure side, be it as a gradual process (imagined as walking through a path) or as a sudden transportation (imagined as leaping or falling). Sacred space as a metaphor for inner religious experience gained enormous popularity from Plato onwards, and this kind of construction may have been the most immediate antecedent. This approach helps to explain several pieces of evidence of Greek itinerant religion, and, more generally, to understand how the possibility of internalizing sacred spaces may be exploited in specific situations.

Identifying an Archetype: The Hipponion Tablet and Regional Variations in the Orphic Gold Lamellae

Over the past century and a half, about 40 Orphic gold lamellae have been discovered throughout the Mediterranean. These tablets were buried with initiates of the Orphic Mysteries, and served as indicators of the deceased’s elevated status in both this life and the afterlife. Many of the lamellae contained instructions for the deceased, guiding them to the blessed area of the Underworld that was promised to them by becoming initiates of the Orphic tradition. Orphism as a cult had no set structure; rather, the practices seemed to have varied from region to region. The cult did not worship in a temple, but via itinerant priests, who traversed his respective area with holy book in hand, preaching to those who wished to achieve a more blessed state. This marginalized sect was not officially recognized by the state, yet in some regions, it gained some level of respect. By analyzing the individual variances in these itinerant priests’ practices, it is possible to identify individual strands of Orphic worship. One of these strands is the Hipponion tablet, which is the oldest extant example for many of the other lamellae throughout the Mediterranean. Dating to about 400 BCE, it is among the earliest of the gold lamellae in existence. The Hipponion tablet was found at Hipponion, in the region of Magna Graecia in Italy, in an inhumation burial of a female. There are some errors in the text, which indicate that the scribe was working with a damaged or inaccurate model; however, without any earlier texts, we are only able to rely on conjecture at this point in time. What is clear is that this text served as a model for the other extant lamellae, which were found throughout Italy, mainland Greece, and the Greek islands, particularly Crete. This study focuses on the influence of the Hipponion tablet, tracing its trajectory throughout the Mediterranean. It also analyzes other examples found in the lamellae, tracking their respective influences.

RECONSTRUCTING ANCIENT CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE ORPHICTHEOGONY: ARISTOTLE, SYRIANUS AND MICHAEL OF EPHESUS ON ORPHEUS’ SUCCESSION OF THE FIRST GODS

In the last decades Orphic scholarship has found itself in rather fortunate circumstances: there have been not only spectacular finds such as the Derveni Papyrus and the so-called Orphic Gold Tablets, but these texts together with all the other fragments ascribed to the authoritative author-figure Orpheus have been made accessible in the new and extensive edition by Alberto Bernabé (2004–7). Understandably, recent discussions have focussed especially on the new material. Nevertheless, much work remains to be done on those fragments with which we have long been familiar. The present study puts a new complexion on a text long taken as evidence for an Orphic theogony.

Oracles of Orpheus? The Orphic Gold Tablets

Oracles of Orpheus? The Orphic Gold Tablets

The Orphic Gold Tablets - (A.) Bernabé, (A.I.) Jiménez San Cristóbal Instructions for the Netherworld. The Orphic Gold Tablets. With an iconographical appendix by Richard Olmos and illustrations by Sara Olmos. Translated by Michael Chase. (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 162.) Pp. xii + 379, ills. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008. Cased, €129, US$188. ISBN: 978-90-04-16371-3.

The Orphic Gold Tablets - (A.) Bernabé, (A.I.) Jiménez San Cristóbal Instructions for the Netherworld. The Orphic Gold Tablets. With an iconographical appendix by Richard Olmos and illustrations by Sara Olmos. Translated by Michael Chase. (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 162.) Pp. xii + 379, ills. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008. Cased, €129, US$188. ISBN: 978-90-04-16371-3. - Volume 59 Issue 2

Persephone. Three Essays on Religion and Thought in Magna Graecia (review)

Book Reviews Persephone. Three Essays on Religion and Thought in Magna Graecia. By Giinther Zuntz. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1971. Pp. xiii + 425, mad 30 Plates. $29) This is a full-length archaeological, philological, and interpretative study of the development and .universalization of the goddess Persephone by the Western Greeks in contact with the cults of the ancient Sicilians, and in relation to Aphrodite and Demeter. The discussion covers among other subjects the originality of the Lokrian contribution to this development, and the place of Malta in the cults of Magua Graecia. Part II consists of a rehabilitation of the fragments of Empedocles' Katharmoi and its Hesiodic message of the sacredness of human life, with some attempt to relate this work to Empedocles' own physics, as well as to Pindar, Pythagoras and Plato. Part III tentatively re-interprets the so-called "Orphic Gold Leaves" kept in the Museums of Naples and London, and relates them both to Pythagorean belief and practice and to Persephone and the afterlife. One consequence of this study worth mentioning to the student of philosophy, is that the editions of these fragments found in H. Diels, O. Kern, and even Olivieri are to be used only with care and scepticism in a philosophical consideration of this component of ancient Greek religion. This student now has something more usable and definitive in Zuntz's edition of, and commentary on, the text of both the Empedoclean Katharmoi and the Gold Leaves fragments. V. TEJ~RA SUNY at Stony Brook Dialog und Dialektik: zur Struktur des platonischen Dialogs. By Hermann Gundert. (Amsterdam: Verlag B. R. Griiner, 1971. Pp. 166. DFL 35) This is the initial volume of a new series of publications devoted to classical philology and philosophy as cooperative methods of research. Here Hermann Gundert presents in book form, with some re-editing, his systematic examination of the dialectical structure of sixteen of the major dialogues which lend themselves to such analysis; of special significance is the detailed analysis of The Republic. (These researches had been published in 1968 in Studium Generale by Springer, Heidelberg.) Here are brought together with great precision and detail the results not only of his own studies but also of the studies of many other scholars who have recognized the value of Plato's Dialogues as classics of dialectical art. His list (pp. 160-161) of the major contributions that have been made in this field since Schleiermacher first called attention to it is indeed impressive; it might well have included the very recent works of Randall and Ryle. With great skill Gundert shows the development of the art by Plato from the early "Socratic" dialogues, through the elaboration of the Phaedo and the Republic among the "middle" dialogues, to the culmination of dialectic as the fundamental method of knowledge in the Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman. There is fortunately no attempt to interpret the Symposium as a dialectic structure, but there is a reference to Diotima's "ladder of love" as a dialectical progression. However, neither Diotima nor Socrates presents this "ladder" as anything but the "mystery" of the discipline of love as it strives toward pure beauty. But if such an ascent of Platonic love is interpreted also as the dialectical ascent of philosophy to [540] ...