Imaginary Gods – The Cults of the Greco-Egyptian Deities in Athens

Swedish Institute at Athens

The Athens Greek Religion Seminar welcomes you to a seminar by Sabine Neumann, The Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen.

<p>In the 4th century BC, the first sanctuary for the goddess Isis was built in Athens by Egyptian immigrants. Cults for the Greco-Egyptian deities Isis, Sarapis, Harpocrates, and Anubis are attested in Athens and Attica until late antiquity and enjoyed great popularity among the Athenians. In previous research, these cults have mostly been studied in terms of their distribution and were more or less treated as "exotica". In my paper, however, I will show how the cults of the Greco-Egyptian gods were religiously appropriated and integrated into the local cultic landscape through the actions of individuals and groups. In doing so, I raise the question of the many possible meanings that the cults could have had in the local context of Athens at different times. As a new approach, I apply the theory of the Social Imaginary to describe how a ritual, a sanctuary, or an iconography of a god was imagined and shaped by the agency of individuals and groups.</p>

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Imaginary Gods – The Cults of the Greco-Egyptian Deities in Athens

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