Hair offerings: historical context, purpose and uses

Offerings of hair, locks of hair or ritual hair-cutting is quite a regular occurrence in ancient sources and textbooks discussing various religious customs of the ancient Greek world. It also seems to be a fairly forgotten offering in a modern context, which is why I wanted to delve back in and write this post. I

Foods of religious importance in my practice

(Disclaimer: This is a repost from an ask I got on Tumblr, which ended up being more detailed than anticipated. The question asked was: “Do you have any food or drink recipe that is spirituality important?”) I do. Very much so. I feel like I need to split the answer in two parts, starting with

Yet another list of historically attested offerings

This is a list of botanical burnt remains found in several temples including: Sanctuary of Apollo and Artemis, Kalapodi, 10th-9th c. B.C. “Pilier des Rhodies”, Delphi, 8th-7th c. B.C. Samian Heraion, 7th c. B.C. Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, 5th c. B.C. Roman Palaimonion, Pit A A.D. 50-100 Palaimonion, Pit C, late 2nd-early 3rd c.

Throwing barley

I’m again a bit too short on time for a complete post, so I’ve decided to fall back on an article summary (+ some thoughts). Today we will be discussing the ancient custom of throwing barley during sacrifice through an article written by Stéphanie Paul and titled “Les grains du sacrifice: le lancer d’orges dans

Why personal devotion matters

This week’s post is a commentary of K. A Rask’s article titled “Devotionalism, Material Culture, and the Personal in Greek Religion” published in Kernos, 29 in 2016 (you read the whole thing here). This 15-page article explores the notion of personal devotion in Ancient Greece and highlights the issues of academia on the matter. Yet, this article

Jewelry as offerings

Another requested topic, which took me wayyy more time than expected. Sorry about that. What has been found in the sanctuaries? We need to divide the offerings found in sanctuaries in two categories. 1. Votive/standard offerings I’d say this is the most common case. Those pieces end up in the sanctuary for various personal reasons.

On offerings of fruit and nuts

This was also a requested topic, in the same vein as my posts on salt and water. The twist though, is that I am going to be focusing on fruits and nuts in a general context and leave out the concept of first-fruit offerings (aparchai), which probably needs its own post. Fruit offerings are extremely,

Why water is not a “lazy” offering

Water was a requested topic and there was plenty of ways to tackle the topic. I’ve chosen this angle of approach because I know I’ve seen some people struggle with the idea. So let’s talk about it and give some context: if you’ve grown up with the luxury of always having had access to clean

On Salt

I’ve been an advocate for the validity of “simple” offerings such as water and olive oil for a while, and I’ve been struck today with the realization that I’ve completely overlooked salt.
This post is my attempt at correcting this mistake and explaining why you should also consider salt as a potent offering.

Why you should consider clay offerings

Figure offerings of clay (and bronze) are common in archaeological findings and their purpose is honestly quite simple. They are both offering and representation of an offering: they are replacements for the real thing. Mary Depew said it better in “Reading Greek Prayer”: “In cases where it would have been either inconvienient or too expensive to