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Amanda Ball (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World) will speak on “Ash and Memory in the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace". Lunch will be at 12, the lecture at 12:30.

Lecture Abstract:

The Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace is well-known as the home of a famous mystery cult of the Hellenistic Greek world, but its Archaic period origins and Classical period transformations have received much less scholarly attention. In this talk, informed by close reading of archival excavation documentation, I reconsider the stratigraphy of the central valley of the Sanctuary of the Great Gods of Samothrace, arguing that the strata reflect meaningful and strategic engagement with the material evidence of past ritual activity. Working from a social stratigraphy perspective, I analyze ash, bone, and votive collections that were purposefully accumulated within the central sanctuary in the 7th - 6th century BCE, then revisited, manipulated, and dispersed to accommodate monumental structures in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. I argue that ash was treated as a form of socially significant material memory, a remnant of Archaic period ritual activity even after several centuries, and was used to create and maintain social memory for the worshiping community of the Sanctuary.