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MYTH, RITUAL, AND METALLURGY in ANCIENT GREECE AND RECENT AFRICA

In this volume, Sandra Blakely considers technological myths and rituals associated with ancient Greek daimones who made metal and African rituals in which iron plays a central role. Noting the rich semantic web of associations that has connected metallurgy to magic, birth, kingship, autochthony, and territorial possession in both Greek and African cultures, Blakely examines them together in order to cast light on the Greek daimones, which are only fragmentarily preserved and which have often been equated to general types of smithing gods. Her comparison demonstrates that these creatures are more sophisticated and ritually useful, and technology a more nuanced image in Greek myth, than has been previously acknowledged. Using comparative cultural material in a thoughtful and careful way, it helps create a common ground between classical studies and the social sciences for the study of religion and technology.

Sandra Blakely is associate professor of classics at Emory University. A scholar of the religions of the classical world, she has received fellowships from the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, the Albright School of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, and the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C.

MYTH, RITUAL, AND METALLURGY in ANCIENT GREECE AND RECENT AFRICA

SANDRA BLAKELY
Emory University

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Cambridge University Press
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© Sandra Blakely 2006

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2006

Printed in the United States of America

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Blakely, Sandra, 1959-
Myth, ritual, and metallurgy in ancient Greece and recent Africa / Sandra Blakely.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-521-85500-6 (hardback)
ISBN-10: 0-521-85500-4 (hardback)
1. Greece – Religion. 2. Africa – Religion. 3. Metallurgy – Miscellanea. I. Title.
BL785.B53    2006
292.1^′6671 – dc22    2006000509

ISBN-13 978-0-521-85500-6 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-85500-4 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for
the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or
third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such
Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THIS BOOK BEGAN as a doctoral dissertation in the departments of Classics and Anthropology at the University of Southern California. Richard Caldwell of the Classics department first suggested an investigation of the daimones and directed the dissertation; J. Stephen Lansing, of the Anthropology department, proposed the combined doctoral degree and has throughout provided invaluable guidance. Sarah Morris, of the Department of Classics at UCLA, has been singularly helpful in directing my introduction to archaeological studies, and Thomas Habinek, as a careful and thoughtful reader, has provided great support. Thanks are due as well to the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, the Albright Institute in Jerusalem, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington D.C., and the American Academy in Rome. Through their financial and institutional support, these have given me access to the many disciplines and regions relevant to this topic, as well as that most irreplaceable of elements in scholarly investigation, the communities of scholars who have generously shared their time, ideas, and questions with me. To the tireless librarians and staff of these institutions I offer grateful thanks as well: the project would have been impossible without them. A practical experiment in bringing classicists and anthropologists together, in the form of a conference on mysteries and secrecy, profoundly shaped the exploration of material I offer here: the financial support of Emory University, and the intellectual contributions of the conference participants, were invaluable. I offer particular thanks to James Redfield, whose participation in the conference was of fundamental importance, and from whose advice on this project I have benefited immensely. Some extraordinary friends and scholars in the Atlanta area – Yvan Bamps, Cynthia Schwenk, and Kent Hackmann – read the manuscript in its early stages and made valuable suggestions. Beatrice Rehl of Cambridge University Press has provided wise advice and support; the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript were generous in their careful reading and insightful suggestions. Errors that remain, I hasten to add, are entirely my own. For encouragement through the many years of writing, rewriting, and rethinking, I thank Thérèse DeVet, whose friendship on this long journey has been irreplaceable.

   For photographs and permission to reproduce them, I thank the British Museum, the Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut, Walter de Gruyter Inc., the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan, and Thomson-Gale Publishing. Some map locations after R. Talbert (ed.), Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, Princeton 2000, used data courtesy of the Ancient World Mapping Center (http://www.unc.edu/awmc).

   I offer this book to my parents: to my mother, for her enduring spirit, and to the memory of my father, who never ceased to pursue understanding.

ABBREVIATIONS

1. Mediterranean sites referred to in text.

2. African sites referred to in text.