Contenu du sommaire : L'objet rituel. Concepts et méthodes croisés

?The inventories of Delos record items deposited every year in the Delian sanctuaries. “Item” does not necessarily mean “offering”, however, and “offering” does not necessarily mean “ritual item”. The confusion between these terms has long been maintained but the study of votive practices through epigraphic sources questions the idea of “all sacred” and forces us to consider the Delian catalogs differently. The expression “ritual item” must be tempered regarding the offerings recorded in the inventories, which can play more than one role: a daily object can thus be used for the performance of a ritual before being dedicated. These multiple layers will be discussed in an attempt to understand if an offering can be a ritual object.?

?This paper aims to define the category of the ritual object, in order to detect the characteristics of this class of objects, by analyzing ritual contexts in Southern Italy during the Early Iron Age. On one hand, it is necessary to try to verify the existence of this category of ritual object that is not determined by a typology linked to artisanal production. On the other hand, it is important to study the depositional pattern: manipulation, whole or partial fragmentation, and the different ways vases are placed.?

?The bloody sacrifices reported by messengers in Euripidean theater show objects associated with sacrificial rituals. Are they “ritual objects” in their own right or do they receive this quality when they are introduced into ritual space? I shall show their close relationship with the tragic context. I want to demonstrate how Euripides selects them to emphasize the signification of sacrifice in each dramatic action.?

?The category of ritual objects is large but does not include all objects bearing religious iconography, unless they are actively involved in a ritual. Can be defined as ritual objects those kept in shrines or homes and used in religious rituals, whether they are carried out by a person, a family or a community. This article focuses specifically on breadstamps used to mark the loaves offered in eulogy to churches by the faithful or to the faithful by the clergy of sanctuaries in the late antique and Byzantine periods. They are not cultic objects but rather household items that give the bread a religious value. The category of ritual object is useful for making sense of a class of objects linking the two worlds of the sanctuary and the home, opening a space between sacred objects and domestic items bearing religious iconography.?

?In the 5th century, when depicting the funerary ritual, the most frequent choice of painters was the moment of the stele offering: the moment when objects are engaged. These images are represented on white lekythoi, which are dedicated to the deceased. A double mise en abyme is observed in this series, the image of an offering depicted on an offering object and lekythoi featured on lekythoi. With this imbrication effect, the gesture of offering is doubly signified, the deceased doubly honoured, and the potters' work becomes exalted. However, around the stele, objects other than vases are offered, and these qualify the deceased and set his image in an idealistic portrait, as they open paths toward other iconographies, other spaces.?

?The offerings dedicated to Aphrodite in her sanctuary looking down upon the agora in Argos attest to votive practices and rites. However, this archaeological documentation is not easily interpreted: are these offerings “ritual objects”? Might this notion, of which the signification is not obvious, allow us to reconstitute the place and role of these objects in the rites that took place in the sanctuary? Some of them may have been used during the rite or convey images clearly linked with some ritual practices; but several categories remain enigmatic, even if the analysis of all the votive material enables us to shed light on some aspects of the cult and rites in ??honour?? of Aphrodite.?

?How can one understand that a ritual may transform a stone statue into a living god, and see in this phenomenon something other than an erroneous belief? In order to do so, one must try to grasp the paradoxical logic that makes it possible to articulate through a single object both material determinations and divine features. By taking the analysis that the last Neoplatonists gave of their own theurgical practice seriously, it seems possible to lay the ground for a theory of the ritual object that raises the question anew, from the point of view of its metaphysical implications.?

?After questioning the notion of ritual object and its validity for the Middle Ages, the article will examine the different objects which seem to symbolize the Jewish identity through the ages (kippah, ritual fringes, circumcision and ritual slaughter knife), and also objects without religious symbolism and the way they are considered within the relations between Jews and Christians in the late Middle Ages in the Iberian area. Used for specifically Jewish rites or within profane rites, they act as transitional objects to express positive or negative feelings, by groups or individuals. Iconography and textual documents (expressing the norm or reflecting the practical field, theological treatises and biblical or talmudical com­mentaries) will support the analysis.?

?The so-called ritual object is here approached from the perspective of archaeological contexts showing operations of cancellation and preservation. They indicate the cyclical rebuilding of a monument or the final abandonment of a site. These phenomena are examined within the historical-cultural frame of the Iron Age. Archaeological observations shed light on the role of the past and on the construction of memory within this period. Cancellation programs with preservative aims planned for settlements, cult places, and necropolises are examined, regarding more particularly the ritual modes of destruction, reconstruction, and final cancellation operations unearthed at Incoronata.?

?Divine images (cult statues and votive offerings) as well as human ones honored by a statue should be analyzed in their primary or secondary context. Statues are fixed or mobile objects set in an open space (outdoors or in an architectural construction open to the outside) or in a more closed context (a building). Heavy-duty handlings documented by archaeological evidence must be considered alongside the ritual operations known through ancient texts. Honors awarded to worthy citizens in the Hellenistic period give us a glimpse of the reality of these operations.?

?This short article is mainly about images decorating the phiale mesomphalos. Since the phiale is generally considered as a “ritual object” because of its specific form and function as a libation instrument, one might expect that its iconographic repertory would be equally “ritual”. Nevertheless, it turns out that it is a rather “open” repertory containing thematic subseries inspired by the world of men, women, gods and heroes. Of course, there are some phialai decorated with ritual scenes but they are far from being the majority. The iconographic repertory of the phiale is in accordance with its multifunctionality and its polyvalence, which are suggested by the iconographic, textual and archaeological sources.?

?The article analyzes a small group of performative images from the exterior monumental decoration of buildings in the Middle Ages that do not represent the divinity. Some of them were the object of magical incantations, others are simply the trace of rites and another group represents subjects that confer power on them. In spite of these differences, these images work according to common principles of efficiency. Some of them, such as the similitudo or evocation of the dead, are specific to the functioning of magic. These images, acting on space and on people with various purposes, create “ritualizing devices” in the margins of the ecclesial space.?

?This study tries to establish the relationship between the object, the image on the object and the liturgy through the Georgian archaeological evidence, which offers a use of images in which the richness and complexity of the programs go beyond a simple iconographic definition. The frequent use of the representation of ritual objects reveals that the repertoire of Georgian monuments of the early Middle Ages draws not only on biblical and hagiographic texts but also on the ritual, especially on the Divine Liturgy. This reference to the liturgy establishes the function of the object and, in some cases, enables us to make assumptions about the reconstitution of the ritual itself.?