This paper treats the contexts of eighteen Late Geometric and Subgeometric pottery fragments from Naxos, Sicily, analysed by Neutron Activiation Analysis. The results do not allow the definition of any local production of pottery of Euboean type at Naxos but provide new insights into the exchange of Geometric ceramic wares of local origin in southern Italy and Sicily. Most recent excavations elucidate the organisation of the earliest settlement. An almost-orthogonal intersection between two streets outlines a chequered urban layout already around 700 BCE. The coaeval enclosure with the bothros and hard-packed floor that occupies the south-west corner of the street intersection indicates the cult of some hero or ancestor. The finding of krater fragment Na 16 with the depiction of an anodos further implies the ritual properties of its context of deposition. Finally, the excavation under the hard-packed floor provides a glimpse of even earlier settlement phases associated with Sikel material culture.

The sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi offers an example of how an ancient cult site was transformed into a Panhellenic sanctuary as a result of political and military conflicts involving some of the leading city-states of the region. After the so-called First Sacred War in the 590s/80s BC, Delphi was launched as the center of the Greek world with its oracle and its Panhellenic games. The Doric style of the Apollo temple and other buildings on the site helped to communicate the ambitions and values of the amphictyony that was in charge of the administration of the sanctuary after the war. The standardization of architecture and sculpture was an important feature in the elite competition that took place in Panhellenic sanctuaries like Delphi, where cities from all over Greece set up costly treasuries and votive statues. Ionic monuments such as the sphinx of the Naxians alternated with Doric buildings. On the basis of recent scholarship, the Ionic order can be interpreted as a regional variation of the “Panhellenic” Doric order. As can be shown, the Ionic order corresponds with cultural values such as abundance, variety, multilingualism, and openness toward Near-Eastern and Egyptian influences that are also characteristic of Ionian poetry, philosophy, and culture.

This chapter turns to the social matrix of the local. Beyond spatial connotations, local communities are aggregations of people first and foremost who cultivate a particular identity of place. Since Greek communities typically included people from other locations, the social texture of the local was subject to varying degrees of cultural diversity. In the field of religion, corresponding negotiations between individual and communal practices were complicated by charged perceptions of what constituted the social core of the local, that is, who was part of it – and who was not. The chapter sets out to disentangle the threads of personal and communal agency. Polinskaya begins her discussion with examples that attest to cultic initiatives undertaken by individual citizens and foreign residents. Beyond well-known practices of turning private endeavours into communal ones (for instance by decree of the polis), Polinskaya unravels more hidden, non-linear processes of communal opting in and staying in. She traces the ways in which personal agency gradually inspired and received communal resonance and meaning.

This chapter turns to the social matrix of the local. Beyond spatial connotations, local communities are aggregations of people first and foremost who cultivate a particular identity of place. Since Greek communities typically included people from other locations, the social texture of the local was subject to varying degrees of cultural diversity. In the field of religion, corresponding negotiations between individual and communal practices were complicated by charged perceptions of what constituted the social core of the local, that is, who was part of it – and who was not. The chapter sets out to disentangle the threads of personal and communal agency. Polinskaya begins her discussion with examples that attest to cultic initiatives undertaken by individual citizens and foreign residents. Beyond well-known practices of turning private endeavours into communal ones (for instance by decree of the polis), Polinskaya unravels more hidden, non-linear processes of communal opting in and staying in. She traces the ways in which personal agency gradually inspired and received communal resonance and meaning.