The 'Orphic' Gold Tablets and Greek Religion: Further Along the Path

Front Cover
Radcliffe G. Edmonds (III)
Cambridge University Press, Jan 6, 2011 - History - 385 pages
The 'Orphic' gold tablets, tiny scraps of gold foil found in graves throughout the ancient Greek world, are some of the most fascinating and baffling pieces of evidence for ancient Greek religion. This collection brings together a number of previously published and unpublished studies from scholars around the world, making accessible to a wider audience some of the new methodologies being applied to the study of these tablets. The volume also contains an updated edition of the tablet texts, reflecting the most recent discoveries and accompanied by English translations and critical apparatus. This survey of trends in the scholarship, with an up-to-date bibliography, not only provides an introduction to the serious study of the tablets, but also illuminates their place within scholarship on ancient Greek religion.
 

Contents

Chapter 1 Who are you? A brief history of the scholarship
3
Texts and translations with critical apparatus and tables
15
Part II Texts and contexts
51
The Corpus Eschatologicum of the Orphics
53
Chapter 4 Are the Orphic gold leaves Orphic?
68
Concerning the anthropology of the Orphic gold tablets
102
Continuity or convergence?
120
A Cretan connection for the gold lamellae of Crete
165
Narrative and ritual in the gold leaves
219
Chapter 10 Sacred scripture or oracles for the dead? The semiotic situation of the Orphic gold tablets
257
Chapter 11 Dialogues of immortality from the Iliad to the gold leaves
271
Chapter 12 Poetry and performance in the Orphic gold leaves
291
New perspectives on the gold tablets
310
Compiled Bibliography
331
Index
372
Index locorum
375

Part III Semiotic and narrative analyses
201
Same use different purpose
203

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About the author (2011)

Radcliffe G. Edmonds III is an Associate Professor in the Department of Greek, Latin and Classical Studies at Bryn Mawr College. He is the author of Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes and the 'Orphic' Gold Tablets (Cambridge, 2004).

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