[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
This engaging and thoughtful volume stems from an international conference held jointly by the Swedish Institute and the British School at Athens in 2015, organised and edited by Matthew Haysom, Maria Mili, and Jenny Wallensten. It brings together seventeen contributions under the theme of the material dimensions of ancient Greek religion. Prompted by the so-called material turn in humanistic and religious studies, The Stuff of the Gods explores how objects, spaces, and bodies perform religious functions, actively shaping belief as much as reflecting it. Although the nearly decade-long publication process has rendered some bibliographical references somewhat outdated, the volume remains a significant contribution to Classical archaeology and to the study of ancient religion, advancing an approach that sees ritual and materiality as fundamentally entangled.
The introduction, authored by the editors, situates the volume within the theoretical framework of the “material turn.” This approach challenges dualisms separating ideas from material expressions and emphasizes the entanglement of people and things, what the editors term “stuff.” Drawing on David Morgan’s claim that “belief is practice,” they argue that cognition, emotion, and cultural experience are inherently material. Greek religion must therefore be studied in light of its tangible aspects. While the agency of objects remains debated, it is now widely accepted that material culture profoundly shapes perspectives.[1] The editors advocate a broad, cross-disciplinary approach, integrating literary, archaeological, art historical, and epigraphic perspectives with a view to showing how deeply materiality is embedded in ancient religious practices, and how the study of objects reveals dimensions of religion that texts alone cannot capture. A shared focus on assemblages, object life-cycles, and relational networks places material culture at the centre of religious analysis.
Although the volume presents a wide range of perspectives and methodologies, the quality and length of individual contributions vary. Some are original and analytically rigorous, while others are less cohesive, reflecting the challenges of interdisciplinary work. That said, the editors and authors deserve credit for producing this important volume, which adds to the distinguished record of the Swedish Institute at Athens on Ancient Greek religion. Owing to the number of contributions, this review focuses on a subset that best exemplifies the volume’s strengths and challenges.
The volume opens with Robin Osborne (Ch. 1), who highlights a fundamental human tendency: drawing conclusions from appearance. This is especially important in a world of material gods. Ancient Greeks associated the sacred (εὐαγής) with visual and material display. Plato warned against excessive dedications in the Laws, and inscriptions like LSS 32 (found in north Arcadia relating to a shrine of Demeter Thesmophoros) forbade ornate clothing in sacred spaces, demonstrating the power and appropriateness of material display in ritual life. Osborne argues that religious “stuff” is only meaningful in comparison to other objects. These material associations shape gods, not just objects. Things embody the divine—a concept coined by Osborne as “godsense”. The preservation and presence of objects were crucial as “stuff” gives gods identity and presence in the world.
Cécile Durvye’s contribution (Ch. 3) explores the complex relationship between object and people and traces the evolution of Aphrodite through votive assemblages, examining if visitors to the Aphrodision on Delos are influenced by this material context. From its founding as a political sanctuary under the patronage of the Delian elite to its later role as a place of personal devotion, the sanctuary’s material record reveals changing religious emphasis. Egyptianizing figurines and terracotta statuettes found during excavations show that the goddess’ broader function, linked more to individuals than to social groups, attracted a rather diverse population to the sanctuary. Based on the “ontological turn,” Durvye’s meticulous reading of inventories and architecture shows that divine identity is negotiated through time and use, revealing the fluid and dynamic nature of religious material culture.
Petra Pakkanen (Ch. 5) explores “movable sacrality” and argues that sacredness in sanctuaries was context-dependent, especially regarding portable objects. Case studies, including sacrificial meat and hides, challenge the divine-human property divide, showing how ownership, space, and ritual shaped sacredness. Despite the chapter’s conceptual depth and extensive use of epigraphic evidence, non-specialists may struggle with its dense theoretical language and reliance on condensed examples. Nevertheless, its insightful observations on the fluidity of sacred material culture provide important perspectives, which might have been made more accessible by including a few longer and more detailed case studies.
Gunnel Ekroth (Ch. 6) analyses the temenos as divine property, focusing on marking and managing sacred space. Drawing on evidence from Olympia, Isthmia, and the Hephaisteion in Athens, she argues that sanctuaries were shaped by practical concerns as much as religious ones. She refutes the notion that sanctuaries required walls or uniform architecture. Sacred space could be marked in various ways depending on context: walls, fences, perirrhanteria, horoi, monuments, or vegetation, often responses to human needs rather than divine mandates. Her discussion of pollution links it to practical challenges of waste and sacrificial remains, offering a grounded view of how sanctity was maintained.
Tyler Jo Smith (Ch. 7) conceives of sacrificial animals depicted on Greek vases as material “things” rather than ritual participants, shedding light on human-divine-animal relationships. Smith examines vase painting from Corinth, Athens, and Boiotia to see how animals are depicted as calm, restrained, and under human control, reinforcing willing sacrifice and ritual order. The symbolic significance of animals and ritual objects like fillets, ropes, and altars is highlighted in dynamic procession scenes. In some instances, Smith’s reading highlights artistic purpose to a degree that may overshadow other interpretative possibilities, particularly in scenes of struggle or loss of control (Ch. 7, Fig. 5). However, Smith convincingly shows that animals were mediators between humans and the divine in sacrificial contexts.
A particularly compelling chapter is Jenny Wallensten’s (Ch. 8), which questions the assumption that sacred gifts belonged solely in formal religious contexts by examining votive dedications in agoras and gymnasia. Wallensten discusses agoranomoi inscriptions in many Greek cities and nomophylakes in Cyrene to demonstrate that the materiality and placement of these dedications shaped their meaning, ranging from public displays of official identity and civic duty to inward expressions of divine presence in magistrates’ offices. She claims that these gifts created new sacred or social spaces by mediating complex relationships between mortals, gods, and communities, not making them “less sacred” because they were outside of sanctuaries. Considering epigraphy, archaeology, and political history, the chapter challenges the ways in which we think about the interaction of space, object, and ritual. While focussing on Greek contexts, the work allows for a wider comparative and theoretical study of religious dedications outside of sacred sites.
Caitlín E. Barrett (Ch. 9) employs the concept of “affordances” to call into question the traditional divide between religious and decorative functions of Hellenistic terracotta figurines in domestic settings and highlight instead their diverse potential based on context and user interaction. Figurines in households without consistent spatial patterns from the Archaic to Hellenistic periods suggest uses beyond cult or adornment. Barrett shows how they could facilitate divine encounters, protect the home, impress guests, display cultural refinement, or perform magical functions (however, the author does not suggest that the listed functions could be evoked at the same time), reflecting Greek culture’s lack of sacred-secular boundaries. Small, mould made figurines from Delos, Olynthos, and Priene were used in rituals and displayed frontally. Some were signed and gilded, and terracotta herms on Delos suggest that domestic figurines could express identity and replace monumental cult statues. Barrett’s conceptual framework offers a multivalent lens that goes beyond reductive modern categories, but a stronger focus on regional and chronological variation would have deepened the analysis.
Catherine Morgan’s chapter on Early Iron Age sanctuaries’ cult building insertion (Ch. 11) is intellectually stimulating. She explores how buildings affected ritual practice, visibility, and access, beyond standard architectural typologies. Morgan proves that buildings in sanctuaries were active ritual agents using case studies from Ithaca, Thermon, Kalapodi, and Ephesus. She accurately notes that the material functions of buildings in sacred spaces are often overlooked by architecture-focused research and studies focusing on political developments and the polis. Her call for framing the issue through materiality advances discussions of technology and religious practices in Early Iron Age and Archaic Greece, contributing to the ongoing discussion of early sacred architecture and bridging archaeological and phenomenological approaches.
Charlotte R. Potts (Ch. 12) expands the discussion by offering a valuable comparative perspective on ritual architecture in central Italy. Using Etruscan and Italic examples, Potts highlights architectural choices that enhanced ritual visibility, regulated access, and reinforced hierarchical participation in rituals. This elegant cross-cultural perspective serves as a valuable reminder that material strategies for staging the divine were not unique to the Greek world and that it can sharpen our understanding of ritual space as both performative and political.
Gina Salapata’s insightful chapter on ambiguity and specificity in modest votive offerings (Ch. 13) complements Morgan’s focus on architecture by examining small-scale and often overlooked terracotta figurines (protomes, statuettes, and plaques). Salapata challenges the view that the figurines’ ambiguous iconography reflects poor craftsmanship or lack of intent, arguing instead that they were deliberately designed for adaptability across different cults, evolving from specific to generic types through use, context, and interaction.[2] For personal or local rituals, figurines can be altered, decorated, assembled, or physically altered. The author emphasises economic pragmatism, workshop agency, and votive object significance in her nuanced and original analysis. Salapata persuasively demonstrates how ritual performance and personal intention can impact mass-produced items with devotional meaning, and she emphasises the often overlooked but dynamic importance of “small things” in religious practices.
James Whitley (Ch. 14) studies inscribed and uninscribed votives from Olympia and the Athenian Acropolis to explore memory and agency through material form. He sees inscription as a material act that situates dedications within social networks. Whitley’s tables clarify his argument and provide a helpful overview. Although dedications of arms and armour at Olympia have been widely discussed, the author succeeds in offering fresh insights. More specifically, the framing of votive assemblages as “structured incoherence” provides a welcome counterpoint to overly neat and linear interpretations of sanctuary use.
Troels Myrup Kristensen (Ch. 16) explores Delphi’s omphalos with reference to the concept of “mythistory,” integrating materiality and memory studies. Drawing on literary and archaeological evidence, in particular the readings of Pindar and the replication of the omphalos, not as a fixed object but a dynamic religious medium material, the author shows how narrative and material forms co-evolve. He does not attempt to locate a prototype, but traces instead the emergence of different versions and their roles in tradition and reinvention. The discussion could be deepened by more directly addressing the various interpretations of the omphalos’ cultic significance.
The contributions in The stuff of the gods are stimulating but feel largely self-contained, in part because recurring themes, such as replication, affordance, and object biography, are not addressed in a comparative discussion or in concluding remarks. A concluding chapter would have also allowed the editors to draw connections across case studies presented in the papers. Overall, the volume was well edited and only a few typos were noticed. The absence of illustrations in some chapters is unfortunate, especially in those relying on visual material. Nonetheless, drawing attention to the many ways in which materiality actively shaped religious experience makes The Stuff of the Gods a valuable contribution to the study of Greek religion. Scholars interested in ancient religion, archaeology, and material culture will find this volume rewarding and enriching.
Authors and Titles
Introduction (Matthew Haysom, Maria Mili and Jenny Wallensten)
- Stuff and godsense (Robin Osborne)
- Why did the Greek gods need objects? (Maria Mili)
- Of things and men in the sanctuary of Aphrodite (Delos). Does the content of a sanctuary define the personality of the god? (Cécile Durvye)
- Incubation rituals. Creating a locality for the divine? (Hedvig von Ehrenheim)
- Movable sacrality. Considerations on oscillating sacredness of material objects relating Greek sanctuaries (Petra Pakkanen)
- A room of one’s own? Exploring the temenos concept as divine property (Gunnel Ekroth)
- Resistant, willing, and controlled. Sacrificial animals as “things” on Greek vases (Tyler Jo Smith)
- Decisive dedications. Dedications outside of sanctuary contexts (Jenny Wallensten)
- The affordances of terracotta figurines in domestic contexts. Reconsidering the gap between material and ritual (Caitlín E. Barrett)
- Investigating the instability of religious material culture in Greek prehistory. The case of “bench shrines” (Matthew Haysom)
- Adding buildings to Early Iron Age sanctuaries. The materiality of built space (Catherine Morgan)
- An external view. Architecture and ritual in central Italy (Charlotte R. Potts)
- Ambiguity versus specificity in modest votive offerings (Gina Salapata)
- Writing to the gods? Archaic votives, inscribed and uninscribed (James Whitley)
- The aesthetics of rare experiences in early Greek sanctuaries (Nassos Papalexandrou)
- Delphi and the Omphalos. Materiality, replication and the mythistory of the Sanctuary of Apollo (Troels Myrup Kristensen)
- The stuff of crowded sanctuaries (Caroline Vout)
Notes
[1] Morgan, D. 2010. Religion and Material Culture: The Matter of Belief. Routledge: London. See also the bibliography of the introductory chapter for more references, as well as the following books: Hodder, I. 2012. Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things. Wiley-Blackwell: Hoboken, and Knappett, C. 2005. Thinking Through Material Culture: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia.
[2] First coined by Barfoed, S. 2013. ‘The Mystery of the Seated Goddess. Archaic Terracotta Figurines of the Northeastern Peloponnese’, in Vessels and Variety. New aspects of Ancient Pottery (Acta Hyperborea, 13), ed. H. Tomasen, A. Rathje & K. Bøggild Johannsen, Copenhagen, 85–105.