Archaeobotanical Evidence from the Acheron Oracle of the Dead: Rethinking Site Interpretation through the Stored Food Products

Introduction This paper indirectly touches upon ancient Greco-Roman myths and beliefs related to perceptions of the plant world and focuses on a modern, nineteenth- and twentieth-century, archaeological myth, in which plant consumption has played a key role. The connecting thread of the two eras essentially starts one spring morning in the early 1810s, when Ali Pasha (1744-1822)—a cunning and ruthless, yet able and multifaceted governor, who actively contested the deteriorating central Ottoma..

Records and Transformations of Memories in the Cultural Landscape of Idomeni (Kilkis, Northern Greece)

Following recent excavations and geophysical prospection at Idomeni in the Kilkis prefecture of Northern Greece, this paper attempts to reconstruct through digital means, the tangible and intangible vestiges of historical episodes that come together to form multiple narratives of a diachronically terra incognita site, gradually unlocking its hidden secrets. The digital documentation and processing, with the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS), of the spatial remains associated with historical episodes demonstrate the ways in which space at Idomeni was used within a multifaceted, diachronic framework. It is a place that is constantly being transformed over the past 7000 years from a seemingly “peaceful” agricultural community during the Neolithic period to a burial ground for a still invisible Middle Byzantine settlement, and finally, as a place of violence having been one of the battlefields of the First World War. The story of Idomeni has only recently been concluded as the theatre of a dramatic influx of modern refugees. Thus, the “multilayered” identity of a mnemonic place with various representations of the past unfolds: on one hand the distant eras, such as the still unknown Neolithic and Middle Byzantine period, and on the other, the relatively recent “traumatic” (war-related) past. Within the specific historical context of the First World War, this paper discusses the management of memories of locals and non-locals, e.g. the disappearance of entire settlements, or the emergence of new toponyms related to the protagonists and their actions during the war in the area of Idomeni remaining in the memory of locals today

Des dieux et des plantes. Monde végétal et religion en Grèce ancienne

L’ouvrage présent rend hommage à l’emblématique ouvrage Prairies et Jardins… d’André Motte (1973) en proposant une moisson toute fraîche de questionnements et de points de vue sur les verts paysages du monde polythéiste des anciens Grecs, ainsi que les espèces et les plantes isolées qui ont poussé sur son sol. Les auteurs du volume, attentifs aux renouvellements à l’œuvre dans l’étude de la religion grecque ancienne, grâce aux recherches de plusieurs décennies, montrent qu’à la pluralité des dieux et des enceintes sacrées correspondent un regard diversifié et une façon dynamique d’envisager l’élément végétal constitutif de l’expérience religieuse. En refusant les approches naturalistes réductrices et les aperçus conventionnels, les études ici rassemblées tiennent compte, notamment, du dialogue perpétuel entre quête théorique ou poétique, réalités rituelles ou politiques, qui régit le polythéisme grec ancien. Elles abordent aussi la dimension locale des récits et des cultes. Sont ainsi mis en perspective des plantes réelles et imaginaires, à travers le vocabulaire concret du végétal, les récits et les croyances indigènes, la topographie des sanctuaires, les calendriers des fêtes, les épiclèses et les attributs divins, les gestes rituels et la pharmacopée. Loin d’épuiser le thème en question, cette promenade interdisciplinaire a l’ambition d’en révéler la complexité en ouvrant des pistes captivantes