This volume brings together scholars in religion, archaeology, philology, and history to explore case studies and theoretical models of converging religions. The twenty-four essays offered in this volume, which derive from Hittite, Cilician, Lydian, Phoenician, Greek, and Roman cultural settings, focus on encounters at the boundaries of cultures, landscapes, chronologies, social class and status, the imaginary, and the materially operative. Broad patterns ultimately emerge that reach across these boundaries, and suggest the state of the question on the study of convergence, and the potential fruitfulness for comparative and interdisciplinary studies as models continue to evolve.



Sandra Blakely is an associate professor in the Department of Classics at Emory University. She currently serves as president of the Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions. Billie Jean Collins is an adjunct lecturer in the Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies Department at Emory University and director of Lockwood Press.



Abbreviations Contributors Introduction, Sandra Blakely Section 1. Site 1 Guardian Goddess of the Surf-Beaten Shore: The Influence of Mariners on Sanctuaries of Aphrodite in Magna Graecia (Amelia R. Brown and Rebecca Smith) 2 Lilibeo e i suoi culti: Nuovi esempi dalla ricerca archeologica (Rossella Giglio) 3 Large Temples as Cultural Banners in Western Sicily (Margaret M. Miles) 4 Close Encounters on Sicily: Molech, Meilichios, and Religious Convergence at Selinus (Sarah Morris) 5 The Temple of Astarte "Aglaia" at Motya and Its Cultural Significance in the Mediterranean Realm (Lorenzo Nigro) 6 Venere del Mare: Testimonianze del culto nel trapanese (Francesca Oliveri) Section 2. Text 7 Hittite Prayers and Their Mesopotamian Models (Elisabeth Rieken) 8 Mythological Passages in Hittite Rituals (Susanne Gorke) 9 Religious Convergence in Hittite Anatolia: The Case of Kizzuwatna (Amir Gilan) 10 The Arzawa Rituals and Religious Production in Hattusa (Billie Jean Collins) 11 Survival of "Popular" Mythology: From Hittite Mountain Man to Phrygian Mountain Mother (Mary R. Bachvarova) 12 Native Religious Traditions from a Lydian Perspective (Annick Payne) Section 3. Object 13 Funerary Practices and Rituals on Sicily from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age (Sixth through Second Millennia BCE) ( Sebastiano Tusa) 14 The Convergence of Guardian Statues in the Ancient World: Top-Down or Bottom-Up? (Christopher Athanasious Faraone) 15 Across Traditions and beyond Boundaries: The Masks of Carthage (Adriano Orsingher) 16 Greek Coins, Punic People: An Iconographic Analysis of the Punic Coinage of Sicily (Jose Miguel Puebla Moron) 17 Ritual Practices, Food Offerings, and Animal Sacrifices: Votive Deposits in the Temple of The Kothon (Motya) (Federica Spagnoli 18 Romantic Receptions, or, The Aeginetan Sculptures' Long March to Munich (Louis A. Ruprecht Jr.) Section 4. Action 19 From Zalpuwa to Brauron: Hittite-Greek Religious Convergence on the Black Sea (Ian Rutherford) 20 The Politics of Ritual Performance at Assyrian-Period Sam'al: Local and Imperial Identity in the Katumuwa Mortuary Stele from Zincirli (Virginia R. Herrmann) 21 The Tonaia and Samian Identity (Aaron Beck-Schachter) 22 Sparta and Persia: Rituals for Invading the Land of the Gods of Others (Irene Polinskaya) 23 Using Your Head: Reading a "Local Style" Adapted for Foreign Ritual (Kevin Dicus) 24 Roman Empire and Roman Emperor: Animal Sacrifice as an Instrument of Religious Convergence (J. B. Rives) Subject Index Ancient Sources Index