What does ancient evidence tell us about religion in the ancient worlds: Using new technology and contemporary theory to re-evaluate and reframe

What does ancient evidence tell us about religion in the ancient worlds? 

Introduction 

Each piece of the ancient world uncovered is a clue to how religion was integral to every aspect of life in ancient Greece and Roman empires, from the daily, lived realities of people, to the broader socio-economic culture, and how ancient life has informed contemporary thought. Each clue on its own is not enough to exhaustively inform, but must be examined collectively, and re-examined as modern technologies unearth new discoveries and new schools of thought re-frame interpretations of ancient culture. I use secondary survey of both qualitative and quantitative (to a lesser extent), to qualitatively examine, how modern technology can bring new tools and to inform about ancient evidence, and how modern thought is used to interpret religion, and thus culture, in antiquity. 

Interpreting evidence to understand the lived realities and cultures of ancient Greeks and Romans can be like looking at anciencies through small pieces of lenses that join together to form one lens: individually, sight is blurred, but collectively, the pieces for a lens though which we are able to bring our vision and understanding into focus and view these cultures with some clarity and insight. Examining ancient Greek and Roman cultures with a theological lens creates understanding as culture and religion were unequivocally linked. It brings clarity to all aspects of socioeconomic life, and is especially pertinent to our understanding of how religion contributed to culture and identity. Modern technology, as well as modern theoretical explorations of identity, have the potential to contribut to a better understanding of ancient Greek and Roman culture. “Building on pioneering innovations in visualization, image-capture, and signal processing, experts in Information Technology, Medical Imaging, and Palaeogeography have been able to develop techniques of reading ancient documents which have remained undeciphered or misread for many decades” (Bowman, p. 220). 

Technology has also been instrumental in re-examination of sites damaged or destroyed by natural disasters or conflict, as is research methodology and design. Newson and Young (2015) site Boylan [2002], in their case study of the Roman settlement and temples at Hosn Niha in the Biqa Valley, which were severely damaged in the Lebanese Civil War (p. 49). “This work has shown that even when destruction appears severe over a large area, targeted excavations can be highly effective” (Newson and Young, 2015, p. 451). They considered the survey to be very effective, despite the site’s damage, in finding clues to unanswered questions regarding temples built there and the ancient populations who inhabited the region. Integration of data allowed for new understanding of how the village and associated structures were organized, including “new insights into the relationship between settlement and temple, and also of the settlement’s history and morphology” (p. 461). “What is clear is that even sites that have been very badly damaged by conflict, and other human and natural events, have the potential to tell us about human activity in the past” (Newson and Young, 2015, p. 462). 

An example of how technology is being employed for not only physical evidence, but how it needs to be evaluated within different sociological contexts is the survey employed by Biancini et al., (2016). “Continuous technological progress and the digital evolution offer new tools and possibilities that can be applied to research” (Bianchini et al., 2016, p. 61). The survey describes recent results of research activities into the Athena project, which studies six of the most famous Mediterranean Ancient Theatres. In describing the archaeological study’s processes, the authors explain it as multidimensional and multidisciplinary, and which “involves not only the study of the tangible characteristics [geometry, construction, conditions] but also the intangible ones associated with history and cultural and social context” (Bianchini et al. 2016, pp. 62-63). “This data is the basis on which to develop new analyses, performed to selectively study different aspect of the analyzed objects … this corresponds perfectly to the new consolidated concept of survey as an open, dynamic knowledge system” (Bianchini et al., 2016, p. 77). 

As new technology has allowed us to re-examine physical evidence, new, contemporary schools of thought have allowed us to re-examine and reframe ancient evidence from within modern sociological, anthropological, and philosophical viewpoints. “In the past six decades, new epigraphic finds have significantly changed our understandings of ancient religion” (Chaoitis, 2016, p. 88). Chaotis (2016) states new discoveries have “revolutionized the study of early Christianity,” while feminist theory reframed research into gender and sociology, and more recently, into collective identity (pp 88-89). The ancient Greek city of Aphrodisias in Asia Minor is examined to discover how religion formed collective identity, and how conflicting religion, as well as antecedent victory, affected collective memory. “Inscriptions and graffiti reflect this [conflicting] religious atmosphere, and the predominant role religious identity played in the city” (p. 97). “These sources permit the study of overlapping civic, social, and religions identities … the significance of memories of war and foundation legends for the transmission of collective and cultural memory … the role played by inscriptions in the construction and transmission of memory” (Chaoitis, 2016, p. 88). As Chaoitis (2016) suggests, how a society defines itself is often written by the victors (p. 98), but collective identity is also written, and changed, by elite, dominant viewpoints. “In some cases, we may identify the agents of these changes as members of the elite. One of them was Apollonios, high priest of the imperial cult and author of a local history” (p. 94). Members of the elite, and those who determined what history would be written, were also patriarchal, but re-examination of previous evidence through modern sociological and philosophical lenses, including feminist standpoints, has provided new streams of thought. An example is provided by Budin (2003), who re-examines the translation and subsequent theoretical interpretation of ancients texts, specifically, in how a repeatedly used term has been translated to the word, concubine. “Theories … then went on to influence not only the lexica and the study of the Greek language itself, but the study of various aspects of Classical religion” (p. 148). Budin explores the ancient texts, various hypotheses of their interpretation, and new interpretations of their context. “It is my hope that this will not only open a pathway for future research into women’s lives in the Roman east, but will also shed new light on contested aspects of Classical religion in the Greek and Roman worlds” (p. 148). 

Women’s voices were seldom heard in antiquity, or if they were heard, their voices were muffled by the patriarchy, and by the patriarchy of academia (Day, 2004). 

“To gain insight into how women viewed themselves and their roles in society, we can survey the diverse array of evidence, however, fragmentary … we can sketch out a basic picture of how women in ancient Greece and Rome viewed themselves in relation to the world around them.” (Day, 2004, pp. 1-2) 

Day (2004) contends that limitations on such a survey, however, are presented by a “dearth” of available works of literature by female authors and by male bias that skews accounts (p. 2). “Though our pool of evidence is small and problematic, by renewing our analysis of women’s own words, we can greatly improve our understanding of Greek and Roman women whose voices have been too-long silenced” (Day, 2004, p. 108). 

This paper is but a brief glimpse into how technology had enabled increased understanding of anciency, and how modern theory can influence previous thought, opening new avenues for consideration of how religion informed culture and society in Ancient Greek and Roman empires. Further examination was beyond the scope of this paper, but claims examining how specific streams of contemporary theoretical schools have considerable potential to further inform our understanding of the role of religion in ancient cultures. “Men asleep live each in his own world, but when awake they live in the same world together” (Heraclitus, as quoted by Santayana, Farout, 2020). Just as we still continue use the words of Homer, of Aristotle, and of Plato, after millennium, to inform and broaden our perspectives, we now use modern perspectives to better inform and broaden those same words written millennium ago.

References 

Bianchini, C., Inglese, C., & Ippolito, A. (2016). New Analysis about Archaeological Architecture (Aa): Six Ancient Theatres of the Mediterranean Sea. SCIRES-IT, 6(2), 61–80. https://doi.org/10.2423/i22394303v6n2p61 

Bowman, A. (2015). Decoding the Past: Ancient Documents and Modern Technology. STRATA: Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, 33, 220. https://library.macewan.ca/full-record/a9h/116904037 

Budin, S. L. (2003). Pallakai, Prostitutes, and Prophetesses. Classical Philology, 98(2), 148. https://doi.org/10.1086/381369 

Angelos Chaniotis. (2016). Memory, Commemoration & Identity in an Ancient City: The Case of Aphrodisias. Daedalus, 145(2), 88–100. https://library.macewan.ca/full-record/edsjsr/edsjsr.24711580 

Day, K. (2005). Finding the Female: A Search for Authentic Women’s Voices in Classical Antiquity. Philological Review, 31(2), 1–21. https://library.macewan.ca/full-record/hlh/17795520 

Faurot, J. (2020). The Life of Reason by George Santayana. Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia. https://library.macewan.ca/full-record/ers/89876554 

Newson, P., & Young, R. (2015). The archaeology of conflict-damaged sites: Hosn Niha in the Biqa’ Valley, Lebanon. ANTIQUITY, 89(344), 449–463. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2015.4