Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Note on abberivations
- PART I THE TABLET TEXTS
- PART II TEXTS AND CONTEXTS
- 3 Text and ritual
- 4 Are the “Orphic” gold leaves Orphic?
- 5 “A child of Earth am I and of starry Heaven”
- 6 Common motifs in the “Orphic” B tablets and Egyptian funerary texts
- 7 Center, periphery, or peripheral center
- PART III SEMIOTIC AND NARRATIVE ANALYSES
- Compiled Bibliography
- Index
- Index locorum
7 - Center, periphery, or peripheral center
A Cretan connection for the gold lamellae of Crete
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Note on abberivations
- PART I THE TABLET TEXTS
- PART II TEXTS AND CONTEXTS
- 3 Text and ritual
- 4 Are the “Orphic” gold leaves Orphic?
- 5 “A child of Earth am I and of starry Heaven”
- 6 Common motifs in the “Orphic” B tablets and Egyptian funerary texts
- 7 Center, periphery, or peripheral center
- PART III SEMIOTIC AND NARRATIVE ANALYSES
- Compiled Bibliography
- Index
- Index locorum
Summary
Center and periphery are problematic terms and may be misleading, especially when applied literally to areas and metaphorically to ideas of the ancient Greek world, because center and periphery imply power and influence exerted and sustained. An area or city-state that may have been a periphery may gradually become a center and vice versa. The engraved gold lamellae and epistomia are a case in point. The texts engraved on these artifacts express ideas that are usually characterized as peripheral to the central Olympian ideology and culture, whereas the provenance so far of these artifacts indicates that the periphery of the Greek world is privileged over the center: Macedonia, Thessaly, Crete, the Peloponnese, Magna Graecia. This is only partially true, however. Crete and Macedonia, located at the southern and northern borders of Greece, eloquently present the problematics of the terms center and periphery. Macedonia is a periphery before Philip and Alexander but with their leadership becomes a domineering center during the Hellenistic period and then gradually changes into a peripheral center. Crete, because of its geographical position in the middle of the wine-dark sea (Odyssey 19.172–173), is one of the centers during the Minoan civilization, but becomes a periphery during the classical period, although its laws and customs continue to exert influences. During the Roman and especially the Imperial periods, however, Crete becomes again one of the peripheral centers.
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- Information
- The 'Orphic' Gold Tablets and Greek ReligionFurther along the Path, pp. 165 - 200Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
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