Vol. 7 (2021). M.W. Baldwin Bowsky, Lissos. Inscriptions found in Excavations of the Asklepieion

ISBN: 978-618-85619-1-5 (εκτύπωση)ISBN: 978-618-85619-2-2 (ψηφιακό)This study presents 29 inscriptions – and a summary and updated edition of an imperial libellus-subscriptio – all revealed during excavations at the temple of Asklepios at Lissos, on the southwest coast of Crete.  The catalog of inscriptions proceeds from public to private genres:  three architectural inscriptions and an imperial intervention; 13 civic decrees; three dedications, one of which includes a sacred law; four manumision inscriptions; an inscribed loomweight; a fragment of unidentified type; and four unlocated fragments.  These inscriptions are best studied as not only as documents but monuments on display in the sanctuary.  Adding a chronological element to the spatial display of inscriptions suggests how they contributed to the appearance of the temple and sanctuary over time.  Not one but two types of writing were visible:  (1) public texts pertaining to institutional life reveal a markedly political character and aspects of the imperial cult; (2) private texts pertaining to the Asklepieion’s main function as a cult center document particular concern with the health of women, infants, and the young.  The Asklepieion at Lissos was no less important than that at Lebena, on the south-central coast of Crete; each continued to play an important role in the religious life of the island in the Roman period.ISBN: 978-618-85619-1-5 (print)ISBN: 978-618-85619-2-2 (digital)This study presents 29 inscriptions – and a summary and updated edition of an imperial libellus-subscriptio – all revealed during excavations at the temple of Asklepios at Lissos, on the southwest coast of Crete.  The catalog of inscriptions proceeds from public to private genres:  three architectural inscriptions and an imperial intervention; 13 civic decrees; three dedications, one of which includes a sacred law; four manumision inscriptions; an inscribed loomweight; a fragment of unidentified type; and four unlocated fragments.  These inscriptions are best studied as not only as documents but monuments on display in the sanctuary.  Adding a chronological element to the spatial display of inscriptions suggests how they contributed to the appearance of the temple and sanctuary over time.  Not one but two types of writing were visible:  (1) public texts pertaining to institutional life reveal a markedly political character and aspects of the imperial cult; (2) private texts pertaining to the Asklepieion’s main function as a cult center document particular concern with the health of women, infants, and the young.  The Asklepieion at Lissos was no less important than that at Lebena, on the south-central coast of Crete; each continued to play an important role in the religious life of the island in the Roman period

Vol. 7 (2021). M.W. Baldwin Bowsky, Lissos. Inscriptions found in Excavations of the Asklepieion

ISBN: 978-618-85619-1-5 (εκτύπωση)ISBN: 978-618-85619-2-2 (ψηφιακό)This study presents 29 inscriptions – and a summary and updated edition of an imperial libellus-subscriptio – all revealed during excavations at the temple of Asklepios at Lissos, on the southwest coast of Crete.  The catalog of inscriptions proceeds from public to private genres:  three architectural inscriptions and an imperial intervention; 13 civic decrees; three dedications, one of which includes a sacred law; four manumision inscriptions; an inscribed loomweight; a fragment of unidentified type; and four unlocated fragments.  These inscriptions are best studied as not only as documents but monuments on display in the sanctuary.  Adding a chronological element to the spatial display of inscriptions suggests how they contributed to the appearance of the temple and sanctuary over time.  Not one but two types of writing were visible:  (1) public texts pertaining to institutional life reveal a markedly political character and aspects of the imperial cult; (2) private texts pertaining to the Asklepieion’s main function as a cult center document particular concern with the health of women, infants, and the young.  The Asklepieion at Lissos was no less important than that at Lebena, on the south-central coast of Crete; each continued to play an important role in the religious life of the island in the Roman period.ISBN: 978-618-85619-1-5 (print)ISBN: 978-618-85619-2-2 (digital)This study presents 29 inscriptions – and a summary and updated edition of an imperial libellus-subscriptio – all revealed during excavations at the temple of Asklepios at Lissos, on the southwest coast of Crete.  The catalog of inscriptions proceeds from public to private genres:  three architectural inscriptions and an imperial intervention; 13 civic decrees; three dedications, one of which includes a sacred law; four manumision inscriptions; an inscribed loomweight; a fragment of unidentified type; and four unlocated fragments.  These inscriptions are best studied as not only as documents but monuments on display in the sanctuary.  Adding a chronological element to the spatial display of inscriptions suggests how they contributed to the appearance of the temple and sanctuary over time.  Not one but two types of writing were visible:  (1) public texts pertaining to institutional life reveal a markedly political character and aspects of the imperial cult; (2) private texts pertaining to the Asklepieion’s main function as a cult center document particular concern with the health of women, infants, and the young.  The Asklepieion at Lissos was no less important than that at Lebena, on the south-central coast of Crete; each continued to play an important role in the religious life of the island in the Roman period

Prolegomena to a dossier : inscriptions from the Asklepieion at Lissos (Crete)

This study assembles an island-wide context for the dossier of inscriptions revealed by excavations at the temple of Asklepios at Lissos in southwestern Crete, by examining the nature of the dossiers attested at and for sites sacred to Asklepios across the island. Such groups of inscriptions should be called “dossiers” rather than “archives,” given their subjective and selective nature; they were chosen to project the way a city and region represented itself rather than to preserve a complete epigraphic record (Cooley 2012b, 222). The ultimate goal is to determine just how characteristic or distinctive the dossier of Lissos is – geographically, chronologically, and by epigraphic genre – within Crete, where Lebena has long dominated the recor

The Imperial Cult: A Cretan Perspective

Forty years after the publication of Sanders’ Roman Crete, a broader range of evidence for the imperial cult on Crete is available—temples and other structures, monumental architectural members, imperial altars, portraiture and statuary, coinage, statue and portrait bases, other inscriptions, priest and high priests, members and archons of the Panhellenion, and festivals—and far more places can now be identified as cities participating in the imperial cult. This evidence can be set into multiple Cretan contexts, beginning with the establishment and evolution of the imperial cult across Crete, before locating the imperial cult in the landscape of Roman Crete. The ultimate Cretan contexts are the role of emperor worship in the lives of the island’s population, as it was incorporated into Cretan religious and social systems.</p