Malta 2017 Abstracts.Docx
Abstracts Thursday, June 1 9:00am-11:00am 1A. The Ancient Eastern Mediterranean: Cultures and Economies Chair: Helen Dixon, University of Helsinki Helen Dixon, University of Helsinki, “Altars to Baal: Understanding the Use of Levantine Phoenician Sacred Space” Though rarely explored on their own terms, the ten temples and shrines known from the Iron Age (ca. 1100 – ca. 300 BCE) Phoenician Levantine ‘homeland’ show evidence of significant stylistic diversity, which may be attributed both to chronological change and regional variation. This paper will focus on structures recovered from within the extant temple complexes, paying special attention to stones identified by their excavators as altars. What do the highly variable materials, shapes, and carved features of these Levantine Phoenician altars potentially tell us about the use of sacred space? How might we interpret the relationships between each ‘altar’ and other temple features, like water basins or standing stones? Evidence from neighboring Mediterranean cultures that has previously been brought to bear on the interpretation of Phoenician altars will also be reevaluated. Malgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba, University of Texas at San Antonio, “Trypillian Culture as the Cradle of European Civilization” My paper examines the motifs found on today’s folk embroideries, weavings, ritual dress, wood carvings, painted Easter eggs, and paper cutouts from East-Central Europe, the Balkans, and Anatolia, and traces their origin to the pre-Indo-European, Neolithic, Trypole-Cucuteni culture, considered the cradle of European civilization. This culture, from the geographic area of today’s Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania, developed from the sixth till the third millennium BC, and was one of the most highly developed cultures of Neolithic Europe.
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