Hellenistic Sanctuaries

Sanctuaries were at the heart of Greek religious social political and cultural life; however we have a limited understanding of how sanctuary spaces politics and rituals intersected in the Greek cities of the Hellenistic and Republican periods. This edited collection focuses on the archaeological material of this era and how it can elucidate the complex relationship between the various forces operating on and changing the physical space of sanctuaries. Material such as archaeological remains sculptures and inscriptions provides us with concrete evidence of how sanctuaries functioned as locations of memory in a social environment dominated by the written word and gives us insight into political choices and decisions. It also reveals changes unrecorded in surviving local or political histories. Each case study explored by this volume's contributors employs archaeology as the primary means of investigation: from art-historical approaches to surveys and fieldwork to re-evaluation of archival material. <em>Hellenistic Sanctuaries</em> represents a significant contribution to the existing bibliography on ancient Greek religion history and archaeology and provides new ways of thinking about politics rituals and sanctuary spaces in Greece.<br>