Tangible Religion. Materiality of Domestic Cult Practices from Antiquity to Early Modern
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ACTA INSTITUTI ROMANI FINLANDIAE VOL. 49 TANGIBLE RELIGION MATERIALITY OF DOMESTIC CULT PRACTICES FROM ANTIQUITY TO EARLY MODERN ERA TANGIBLE RELIGION TANGIBLE editors RIA BERG, ANTONELLA CORALINI, ANU KAISA KOPONEN & REIMA VÄLIMÄKI ROMA 2021 TANGIBLE RELIGION MATERIALITY OF DOMESTIC CULT PRACTICES FROM ANTIQUITY TO EARLY MODERN ERA editors RIA BERG, ANTONELLA CORALINI, ANU KAISA KOPONEN & REIMA VÄLIMÄKI ACTA INSTITUTI ROMANI FINLANDIAE Vol. 49 TANGIBLE RELIGION MATERIALITY OF DOMESTIC CULT PRACTICES FROM ANTIQUITY TO EARLY MODERN ERA editors RIA BERG, ANTONELLA CORALINI, ANU KAISA KOPONEN & REIMA VÄLIMÄKI ROMA 2021 Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae, rivista internazionale open-access sottoposta a peer review Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae, an international peer-reviewed open-access series Direttore / Director MIKA KAJAVA, Helsinki Department of Languages FI–00014 University of Helsinki Comitato scientifico /Editorial board MIKA KAJAVA – MARJO KAARTINEN – ARJA KARIVIERI Comitato editoriale internazionale / International editorial advisory board JOHN BODEL (Providence, USA), ALFREDO BUONOPANE (Verona), IRENE BRAGANTINI (Napoli), MICHEL GRAS (Paris), KLAUS HERBERS (Erlangen), SYBILLE EBERT-SCHIFFERER (Roma) Redazione / Editing Simo ÖRMÄ, Roma Redazione del vol. 49 / Editorial work for vol. 49 RIA BERG, ANTONELLA CORALINI, ANU KAISA KOPONEN & REIMA VÄLIMÄKI In copertina / Cover illustration Bronze statuette of the goddess Fortuna and the Lares in the lararium of the House of Fortuna (IX 7, 20), Pompeii. After F. Niccolini – F. Niccolini, Le case ed i monumenti di Pompei disegnati e descritti, Napoli 1890, vol. III, Casa r. IX is. VII, tav. III. È vietata la riproduzione delle immagini del libro in qualsiasi forma / Reproduction of the images of the volume is forbidden I titoli delle riviste sono abbreviati secondo le norme dell’American Journal of Archaeology / The abbreviations for journal titles follow the system of the American Journal of Archaeology. ISBN 978-88-5491-164-2 ISSN 0538-2270 © Institutum Romanum Finlandiae Roma 2021 www.irfrome.org Finito di stampare nel mese di luglio 2021 Contents Acknowledgements 7 RIA BERG – REIMA VÄLIMÄKI – ANU KAISA KOPONEN – ANTONELLA CORALINI, Introduction: Tangible Religion from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period 9 ANCIENT WORLD MERITXELL FERRER, More than Dwellings. Women, Rituals and Homes in Western Sicily (8th–5th Centuries BCE) 37 SIMONA PERNA, What is in a Vase? Materiality and Semiotics of Cinerary Vases in Egyptian Stone and Vase Shapes in Roman Domestic and Funerary Contexts 51 AUDE DURAND & WILLIAM VAN ANDRINGA, To Live or not to Live. The Lares and the Transfer of the Domicilium in a Roman Town 85 MADDALENA BASSANI, Gods and Cult Objects in Roman Houses. Notes for a Methodological Research 101 RIA BERG, Instruments & Amulets. Pompeian Hairpins and Women’s Domestic Ritual 119 ANTONELLA CORALINI, Materialising Divine Presences. Hercules domesticus Revisited 145 ANU KAISA KOPONEN, Egyptian Cults in Pompeian Domestic Wall Paintings 177 MADDALENA BASSANI, Sacra privata in Central Italy. New Data from an Archaeological Research 209 MEDIEVAL & EARLY MODERN EUROPE CLAIRE RENKIN, Making the Sacred Palpable. How Material Objects Enhanced Lay Devotional Practices in Late Medieval Europe 223 REIMA VÄLIMÄKI, More Powerful than Mere Matter? Forbidden but Practiced Material Religion among the Late Medieval German Waldensians 239 KIRSI MAJANTIE, Venerated and Didactic Walls. Devotional Images on Fifteenth- to Sixteenth-Cen- tury Tile Stoves in Northern Europe 255 DAVID GAIMSTER, New Faith, New Home, New Stove. The Role of the Hanseatic Ceramic Trade in the Transmission of New Confessional and Political Identities in the Northern European Home, c. 1500–1600 271 List of Contributors 283 Acknowledgements This book has its roots in an international workshop of the same name, Tangible Religion, which focused on the material presence, use and meaning of objects relative to cult practices in premodern domestic spaces, in a time frame ranging from Antiquity to Early Modern Europe. The workshop was organized at the Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, Villa Lante in Rome, 27th–28th November 2014 by Dr. Ria Berg, Dr. Anu Kaisa Koponen and Dr. Marika Räsänen; the editors of the volume thank Dr. Räsänen warmly for her assiduous work and enthusiasm in the organization of the event, essential for the creation of this volume. Further papers (Bassani, Coralini, Ferrer, Perna) have been added from those read in another, complementary workshop, the session Objects and Images. Materiality of Lived Religion in the Classical World, organized by Dr. Ria Berg, Prof. Antonella Coralini and Dr. Ilkka Kuivalainen at the European Association of Archaeologists yearly conference Building Bridges, 30th August – 3rd September 2017 at Maastricht. We also warmly thank Dr. Maddalena Bassani, who was present at both conferences, for sharing her expertise and for fruitful collaboration through the editorial process. This project is a fruit of the interdisciplinary and longue-durée approach at the heart of the work of the institute, and aims to stimulate exchange and confrontation of methods, research questions and new influences in different fields of study. We thank first and foremost the Finnish Cultural foundation and the University of Turku for financial support that made it possible to organise the original workshop in Rome; we of course owe a great debt of gratitude to the Institutum Romanum Finlandiae for support and assistance in all phases of the process, in particular the then director Prof. Tuomas Heikkilä, Intendent Simo Örmä, and Amanuensis Linda Jokela. We also express our sincere gratitude to the current Director, Prof. Arja Karivieri, Prof. Marjo Kaartinen and Prof. Mika Kajava for accepting the manuscript for publication. We also thank the Parco archeologico di Pompei, especially Prof. Massimo Osanna and the present Director, Prof. Gabriel Zuchtriegel, for the kind permission to study the Pompeian materials and wall-paintings relevant to the theme and Dr. Grete Stefani and members of the Pompeii staff for long-standing and multiple assistance. We also thank Dr. Brian McNeil for the English revision of a number of articles. Over the years, we have had the pleasure of benefiting from discussions with and support from numerous scholars, whom we want to thank cordially, in primis Prof. Katariina Mustakallio, but importantly also Emese Balint, Jonas Bjørnebye, Kimberly Bowes, Rasmus Brandt, Véronique Dasen, †Turid Seim, Line C. Engh, Kristine Iara, Siri Sande, Teemu Immonen, Ilkka Kuivalainen, Liisa Lagerstam, Ville Hakanen, Katja Varakas and numerous others. Rome, June 2021 Ria Berg Antonella Coralini Anu Kaisa Koponen Reima Välimäki Introduction: Tangible Religion from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period RIA BERG – REIMA VÄLIMÄKI – ANU KAISA KOPONEN – ANTONELLA CORALINI In ancient and premodern societies – from archaic Greece and imperial Rome, through the Middle Ages up to Reformed Northern Europe – most homes contained at least some select objects with a religious or ritual significance. Such objects, with a variable degree of sacrality, would range from altars, household shrines, and statuettes of divinities to incense burners, relics, pendants, rosaries and religious imagery of gods and saints represented on wall paintings, decorative tiles, textiles, furniture or everyday utensils, and even substances contained in the ‘consecrated’ vases, such as incense, salt, honey, water and wine. Such objects differed from the most venerated sacred cult items safeguarded in temples and churches, and seen only during certain ceremonies: domestic cult objects may have been seen, touched and used on an every-day basis. Inhabitants, visitors, servants, and slaves of the households therefore had a close, physical – and arguably more direct, personal and emotive – relationship with these objects with which they shared the living space and with which they were in daily interaction, than with the objects of the official cult. In domestic space, holy and everyday activities and objects mingled and were closely interwoven, to such an extent that it is impossible to distinguish the borders between the ‘sacred’ and the ‘profane’. Material culture, with its non-language-like qualities, has always offered very specific ways to express abstract religious ideas and emotions.1 Tangible objects – cult images, ritual paraphernalia, offerings, relics and sacred mementoes – have made it possible to vest ethereal religious beliefs in a material form, to render abstract ideas concrete and tactile, and made them ownable and capable of being contained in one’s home.2 Thus, religious performances – prayers, votive promises, and sacrifices – can have, to a certain degree, material proxies reflecting these ephemeral acts of speech and gesture.3 In the Roman world, cult and sacrifice were prescribed in minute detail, and their material equipment too had to meet certain formal standards.4 Such objects and images had also, in turn, the capability to render certain domestic spaces (more) sacred and give to the entire Roman domus a sacral aura.5 The Roman house, as a homestead, was therefore, in a certain sense, regarded as a holy place and therefore was well protected by Roman law. The violation of someone’s house was regarded as an attack not only against property and person, but also against the Roman state and its religion. In theory, the same ‘sacred aura’ attached to the Roman elite house also protected the humble homes of the poor.6 1 BOIVIN