Contents

Abbreviations

Contributors

1 Introduction: Object, Image, and Text: Materiality and Ritual Practice in the Ancient Mediterranean

Sandra Blakely

Section 1. From Image to Context: Iconography and Polysemnity

2 Divine Twins or Saintly Twins: The Dioscuri in an Early Christian Context

Annewies van den Hoek

3 Altars, Astragaloi, Achilles: Picturing Divination on Athenian Vases Sheramy D.

4 Incarnating the Aurea Aetas: Theomorphic Rhetoric and the Portraits of Nero

Eric R. Varner

Section 2. Reading the Gods: Texts and Gifts

5 No More Than One Candle, Torch, or Wreath: Private Citizens and the Commemoration of L. Caesar at Pisa

J. Bert Lott

6 The Cadence of the Language of Magic in Greek Curse Tablets and First Corinthians

Jill E. Marshall

7 Sacred Objects, Material Value, and Invective in Cicero's Verrines II 4 Isabel Koster

Section 3. Implements and Images

8 Local Production and Domestic Ritual Use of Small Rectangular Incense Altars: A Petrographic Provenience Analysis and Examination of Craftsmanship of the Tell Halif Incense Altars Seung Ho Bang, Oded Borowski, Kook Young Yoon, Yuval Goren

9 Judaean Pillar Figurines and the Making of Female Piety in Ancient Israelite Religion

Erin Darby 193

10 Priestesses in Action: Ritual Instruments Employed by Roman Women

Meghan J. DiLuzio 215

11 Rhetoric, Repetition, and Identity in the Frieze of Sacred Objects on the Temple of Divus Vespasian and Divus Titus

Susan Ludi Blevins 233

Section 4. Sites and Structures: Gods, Men, and Cultural Identities

12 Channeling Identity: The Fountain of Glauke in Corinth and Jacob's Well in John 4

Eric Moore 261

13 “In This Holy Place”: Incubation at Hot Springs in Roman and Late Antique Palestine

Megan S. Nutzman 281

14 Gods, Graves, and Extratextual Rituals in Archaic Colonial Sicily

Lela M. Urquhart 305

Subject Index 329

Ancient Sources Index 337