Serving the Gods. Artists, Craftsmen and Ritual Specialists in the Ancient World. 23rd Workshop of the Melammu Project Wrocław.
The aim of this research workshop is to understand the complex role of those people who worked for the temples, including political authorities. All individuals, together with their ethnic and social backgrounds and occupations, present a diverse social and cultural stratum and form networks within the place of worship. Therefore, we want to treat this topic through the prism of both archaeology and history and prosopography. This international scientific meeting is the result of work on two projects funded by NCN/ Horizon 2020 grants Polonez Bis 1 and 2: AlAt People of the Gods. Worshippers of Allat and Atargatis in the Near East and beyond from the 4th c. BCE to 4th c. CE and RuBab Rural settlements in Southern Babylonia during the early Age of Empires.
Thursday, 26 September
Opening 09:15-09:30 VICE RECTOR OF RESEARCH, PROF. DR HAB. ARTUR BŁAŻEJEWSKI (Wrocław)
Session 1 Chair: BERNHARD SCHNEIDER (Wrocław)
09:30-10:00 SEBASTIAN FINK (Innsbruck) – Divine Servants on Strike! Not Serving the Gods in Ancient Mesopotamia
10:00-10:30 ERIN DARBY (Tennessee) – The Missing Ritual Potters of the Ancient Near East? An Ethnoarchaeological Approach
10:30-11:00 Coffee break
11:00-11:30 ZOZAN TARHAN (Sofia) – Reconsidering the Assyrian King’s Priestly Roles and Ritual Performance
11:30-12:00 MICHAL SCHWARZ (Brno) – Connecting Deities, Kings and People: Public Festivities and Musicians in Multiethnic Tarim Basin and their Depictions in Local Texts and Temple Paintings
12:00-12:30 GIORGIO CAMPI (Warsaw) – To Be Given and Never Be Returned: Nethînîm and Forced Labor in Persian Yehud in Light of Babylonian Širkûtu
12:30-13:30 Lunch break
Session 2 Chair: SEBASTIAN FINK (Innsbruck)
13:30-14:00 BERNHARD SCHNEIDER (Wrocław) – Bricks for the Gods? Archaeological Evidence for the Production of Neo-Babylonian Stamped Bricks in Rural Southern Iraq
14:00-14:30 AN JIANG (Los Angeles) – Taleides and a Special Type of Pyxides for Artemis
14:30-15:00 KIERSTEN NEUMANN (Chicago) – “A Star of Reddish Gold Adorned with Precious Stones”: Deciphering the Assyrian Roundel from Tell Tayinat
15:00-15:30 Coffee break
15:30-15:00 ALEXIS SZUSTER (Paris) – Self- Presentation of Ritual Specialists in Thebes During the Late Period
15:30-16:00 PIOTR ZADWORNY (Leiden) – Different Kinds of Perfumers in Service of Goddess Bau
16:30-17:00 NICOLAS SAMARETZ (Brno/Fribourg) – Approaching the Divine: Memory of Patrons and Donors in 4th and Early-5th-Century Christianity Through Funerary and Material Culture
17:30-18:00 General Discussion
19:00 Speakers’ Dinner
Friday, 27 September
Session 3 Chair: ALEKSANDRA KUBIAK-SCHNEIDER (Wrocław)
09:00-09:30 ROOSA KALLUNKI (Tampere) – Child Priests in Roman Italy
09:30-10:00 AGNIESZKA WOJCIECHOWSKA (Wrocław) – Egyptian Priests: Cultic Agents, Managers or Civic Servants
10:00-10:30 FRANCESCA MAZZILLI (London) – Interactions vs. Divisions Between Individuals and Communities: A Spatial and Network Analysis of Cult Places: A New Perspective
10:30-11:00 Coffee break
11:00-11:30 KRZYSZTOF NAWOTKA (Wrocław) – Prophetes, Prophetis and the Epigraphic Culture of Miletos.
11:30-12:00 DILYANA BOTEVA (Sofia) – Votive Reliefs and Cult Practices in Roman Thrace
12:00-12:30 CARL-LORIS RASHEL (Paris) – Professional Associations in Contact with Egyptian Temples
12:30-13:30 Lunch break
Session 4 Chair: AGNIESZKA WOJCIECHOWSKA (Wrocław)
13:30-14:00 LUKASZ NIESZOLOWSKI-SPANÒ (Warsaw) – Why so many? The Non-Priestly Staff of the Jerusalem Temple: Between Myth and Reality
14:00-14:30 STEVENS BERNARDIN (Paris) – The Shepherds and the Cultic Process in the Phoenician World
14:30-15:00 ALEKSANDRA KUBIAK-SCHNEIDER (Wrocław) – Statues for the Gods: Sculpturers and Decorators for the Temples (Palmyra, Hatra, and Nabataea)
15:00-15:30 Coffee break
15:30-16:00 NICOLAY SHARANKOV (Sofia) – Serving the Pontic Mother of Gods in Dionysopolis
16:00-16:30 ALISÉE DEVILLERS & TOON SYKORA (Leiden) – Ensuring eternity: the Dual Representational Role of the Artist-Ritualist in Middle Kingdom Egypt 16:30-17:00 HAGGAI OLSHANETSKY (Warsaw) – Jewish Soldiers in the Roman Army and their Place in their Synagogues and Communities
17:00-17:30 General Discussion & Closing of the Workshop
