Ritual, Text, Discourse

The Components of Extratextuality

The concept of extratextuality and its application to ritual and religion depends on other, well-established theoretical premises: first, that rituals act as texts, and second, that texts serve as points of reference in broader cultural discourses.

To think of rituals as texts is to also analogize the ability for rituals to be “read” so that their meaningfulness becomes more apparent (Marcus and Fish­er 1986, 61; Ricoeur 1971, 541-46). According to Ricoeur, embedded in what constitutes a “text” is the notion that meaning becomes fixed through the text's inscription. When the text is more metaphorical, or if “(ritual) action” is substi­tuted for “text,” then action also becomes “fixed.” Yet in the process of obtaining this very fixedness, the text (or, the ritual as text) also becomes objectified; and from that position, it is made permeable to interpretation (and thus alternative meanings or “meaningfulness” in a general sense).

Most theorists have imagined the primary reader of ritual texts as the out­side observer—the scholar, the anthropologist, the linguist. Ritual texts, though, can also be read and interpreted by the people experiencing them firsthand; this is part of what practice theorists insist upon in exposing the interplay between the formal devices of texts and rituals and then the engagement of various actors with such devices in order to create, transform, and manipulate meaning (cf.

Texts also form the substructures of discourses, with discourse defined not as the scholarly theoretical dialogue within a discipline about a particular topic, but as the established conventions and collective knowledge to which new texts respond (and which in turn are subsequently generated by them). In both cases, discourses are ongoing things that develop reciprocally with on-the-ground situ­ations and cultural expectations. Like texts, discourses are established through “fixation”; as Ricoeur notes (1971, 532), discourse refers to the substance of what has been said, rather than the act or event in which it occurred. By “fixing” that information, discourse becomes, in the process, detached from its original context and interpreted by others who try to “make sense” of it by relating it to ongoing situations; discourse, from this perspective, is always about something.

Discourse also always addresses an audience, but because of the path in which it developed, it “escapes the limits of being face to face” (Ricoeur 1971, 535) and instead is addressed to the abstracted audience writ large.

If rituals are understood and interpretable as texts, then like texts, they also contribute to the development of a discourse. Actions, as opposed to words, be­come moored when particular ones unfold in a social dimension that, for various reasons, refers to a broader situation outside of the action itself. Certain conven­tions or information earn credibility and, as a result, gain ground because they resonate with genuine concerns, threats, fears or pleasures, thereby validating their authority.

All ritual thus speaks to and within an existing cultural discourse, one that is situational and permeable to the modalities of the “audience” that participates and observes it. Building on the description by Yatromanolakis and Roilos (2005) noted earlier, however, extratextual rituals, speak both to the existing discourse, but also beyond that discourse and its specific set of actions to other strands of dialogue active within a particular community. Moreover, if intertextuality refers to how texts (or actions seen as texts) can play with and generate a sort of internal dialogue that is disconnected from the outside, extratextuality implies the abil­ity of texts and actions to speak directly to the outside world and to alternative discourses distinctly not part of the status quo.

Cultural Discourses in Archaic Sicily

There is no way of knowing what the actual cultural discourse was for central­western Sicily at the time of ancient colonization. The literary sources, howev­er, hint that it was an evolving one that responded to the rapidly changing and multidimensional sociopolitical situation of the region from the sixth century BCE on. Textual accounts mention multiple incidents of conflict—most with­out clear signs of closure—among rotating constellations of Greek, Phoenician, and indigenous communities.

At the same time, the archaeological record makes apparent that at least some Greek cities—most notably Selinous, the recurrent rival to Segesta in the textual record, but also Himera and then especially Akragas after ca. 550 BCE— had deep and lasting social and economic relationships with the indigenous hinterland. Greek imports and pottery manufactured at the Greek colonies ap­pear in earnest at indigenous sites in central-western Sicily from 625 BCE on. Although a fully synthetic study of imports found at indigenous settlements is not yet possible (cf. Spatafora 2003, 95-96), their presence in indigenous assem­blages has been widely noted and examined alongside studies of colonial-manu­factured wares and locally produced pottery. At Monte Maranfusa, for example, Early Corinthian pots appear at the site in the late seventh century but in modest numbers, reflecting an assemblage profile remarkably similar to what has been demonstrated for Selinous (cf. Dehl-von Kaenel 1995). By the mid-sixth century BCE, production of the favored local grey ware halted, being supplanted by an increase in Attic imports, Selinountine wares, and locally produced pots painted with geometric decoration.

The historical accounts also allude to internal conflict within settlements, Greek and indigenous alike. At Himera, debate over how close the ties should be to the Phoenicians and Carthage contributed to the expulsion of the political faction associated with the city's tyrant in the late 480s and the subsequent battle of Himera (cf. Miles 2010, 121-23). Similar discussions likely went on at Selinous given the rapid turnover of tyrants between ca. 580/70 and 480 BCE (De Angelis 2003, 156-61). Written sources for non-Greek sites in Sicily are both limited and late, but an isolated number of odd comments made by Greek authors allude to the heterogeneity of local communities, even as late as the fifth century BCE. Thucydides (VI.1-3) famously divided the indigenous Sicilians into three his­torically ethnic categories at the beginning of his sixth book, the Sikels, Sikans, and Elymians, distinctions that are not necessarily incorrect but all the same lack precise corresponding demarcations in the archaeological record (as has been widely discussed and dissected in the scholarship, but is especially well summa­rized by Robert Leighton (1999, 229-235), Carla Antonaccio (2001), Rosa Ma­ria Albanese Procelli (2003, 18-22), and Franco De Angelis (2003, 103-4)). This notation of Sicily's historical ethnic diversity, however, foreshadows the later lack of consensus among the Sicilians over who they would support militarily, which Thucydides suggests was one of the (many) miscalculations made by Athens in launching the Sicilian expedition.

Do the disagreements at the pan-Sicilian level translate into disagree­ments within individual communities? It is impossible to say with exactitude, but an answer in the affirmative is not too far-fetched based on the textual and archaeological evidence. Literary allusions to “kings” at Sicilian settlements, such as KwKaXoy at the city of Kamikos, thought to be the central Sicilian site of Sant'Angelo Muxaro, suggest that at the time of early Greek settlement, the sociopolitical structure of local groups, as perceived by the Greeks, was along the lines of a chiefdom. The archaeology, however, does not indicate strong degrees of social differentiation for the Iron Age; within most communities, a markedly “elite” social or political group is not apparent, though in a few (notably Pantalica in the eastern part of the island), differences are more evident. Signs of social differentiation, however, increase from the beginning of the Archaic period on; burials at Sabucina, Monte Saraceno, Vassallaggi, and other sites include high­er numbers of imported material (cf. Panvini 2006), insinuating a shift toward greater forms of social display, while greater levels of investment toward public works such as walls, cisterns, sacred spaces and roads simultaneously point to an increase in wealth at the collective level. This material seems to suggest that while the process and exact character of social change in each settlement may not be clear so many years later, it very likely did occur. In addition, if what the liter­ary record says about the Sicilian population as a whole is any indication, these changes were not very smooth; instead they more likely spurred both theoretical debates and deep fractures within various communities, with some groups at­tempting to preserve or even revert to more traditional—or what were thought to be more traditional—social, political, and cultural structures, with others push­ing for new alternatives.

Extratextuality and the Transitions in Indigenous Sicilian Ritual

Let's return to both the numbers and to extratextuality. The quantification of ma­terial correlates allows us to identify certain widespread changes from the Iron Age through the Classical period across the case-study region as a whole. But a simple comparison of precolonization sites with evidence corresponding to the ritual material correlates to postcolonization sites is not enough. Indeed, it would result in basically a plateau when averaged across the Iron Age-Archaic period transition, with the number of settlements presenting “religious” evidence chang­ing only slightly from twenty-one sites prior to 650 to ten in 600 to twenty in the early sixth century. If, however, the basis of comparison is instead the average of the correlates present in individual contexts, the differences are stark. Prior to 650, sites had an average of 4.5 correlates present, while after 600, the average was 9 or higher. In addition, the evidence was increasingly attested in discrete areas not associated with the funerary sphere. Indeed, as the seventh century BCE closed, what had distinguished earlier Iron Age graves as ritually significant in­creasingly disappeared; by the late sixth century BCE, the number of indigenous burials receiving “special” ritual attention beyond the deposition of the bodies and a funerary vessel assemblage is virtually zero.

These differentials indicate three major overarching trends in the develop­ment of indigenous Sicilian religion in the period corresponding to colonization. First, its physical manifestation became more visible in the post-650 BCE period, increasingly being expressed through practices and forms of expression that were not only durable in the archaeological sense, but also increasingly perceptible as distinct from quotidian household items. This might thus be translated as in­creased material (and economic) investment in religious activity, but also as an increase in the symbolic leverage associated with religious activity within indig­enous communities. Second, the retreat from the necropolis was compensated for through a heightened attraction to nonmortuary, nondomestic spaces that were specially designated for ritual activity; in short, graves steadily became less im­portant, while new nonfunerary areas increased in ritual significance. Third, the retreat also heralded a broader shift from loosely to highly structured ritual, in the sense that as necropoleis were left behind, so too were aspects of Iron Age religious practice such as its diffuseness, its lack of ritual consistency, and its ambiguity.

From this perspective, indigenous sites in central-west Sicily experienced dramatic transformations in the scope and incarnation of their ritual activity and “religion” during the Archaic period, coincident with the foundation and sub­sequent growth of the “colonial” settlements. A quite broad shift had occurred, one where the primary orientation of indigenous ritual activity went from graves to gods—or, to be more precise, invisible beings not relegated to graves and as­sociated with supernatural forces. In some ways, however, the fundamental ideas of what was appropriate for ritual stayed the same: in the Iron Age and in later periods, the commonest correlates are the recurrent use of a set-apart space with natural associations, usually further demarcated through the use of attention­focusing devices and specialized architecture. These basic precepts for structur­ing a ritual space did not change that much, even if their mode (and place) of expression did. The choice to practice ritual in areas where the natural world was enhanced (even if, as in urban sanctuaries, modestly so) continued a tradi­tion that would have nearly always been recognizable, while the idea of orga­nized ritual activity occurring in an area that was “separate” riffed on the older separation of burials (and burial ritual) from the rest of the settlement. The most common ritual practices identifiable in the post-650 sacred areas also had Iron Age precedents. The deposition and special treatment of particular items—the most commonly attested ritual practice among Archaic and Classical period in­digenous sites—was steeped in the Iron Age tradition of leaving goods alongside the dead, as was the consumption and/or offerings of food and drink, particularly those with alcohol. Yet while the sweep away from graves may have generally been toward ritually rich, discrete sanctuaries, drawing on earlier semantic tradi­tions and the cultural discourses those traditions had contributed to along the way, it took very different routes in getting there, all of which also took on distinct material characteristics that a strictly quantitative analysis of material correlates would fail to capture.

Investigating these developments from the standpoint of extratextuality exposes these different routes more clearly. Several of the high-frequency cor­relates have, for example, sharply distinct manifestations. As discussed earlier, this divergence has most often been noted in regard to religious architecture, via the round hut-shrines and rectangular oikos-style shrines, with round buildings reflecting ties to native architectural traditions and rectangular buildings indi­cating evidence of “hellenization.” But is also evident for other correlates. Ritual deposition or special treatment of items, for example, was widespread among indigenous sites (though it can be difficult to confidently call the practice “vo­tive dedication” in some cases). Even so, the objects themselves vary significant­ly, ranging from pots and mass-produced terracotta statuettes (as documented at, for instance, Monte Saraceno and Palma di Montechiaro) to very elaborate bronzes. The best documented case for the dedication of bronzes comes from sixth-century Polizzello, where the floors of buildings A, B, and D were pock­marked with deposits of ash that held bronze and a few silver ornaments. Bronze items also made up a significant portion of finds places like Colle Madore, Mon­tagnola di Marineo, and at least one of the sanctuaries at Segesta (Di Noto 1997). The metal hoard found on the “sacred slope” at Colle Madore dated to 550-525 BCE and included anthropomorphic bronze sheet warrior belts, other bronze sheeting fragments, three bronze fibulae, three bronze rings, three bronze bowls, and a number of small iron objects (Vassallo 1999, 86-88). Similarly, at the sixth­century site of Montagnola di Marineo, the excavators discovered a deposit of three bronze helmets, two shin-greaves, part of a shield perhaps, and some type of iron object (Spatafora 2006). While never at the level that is associated with Archaic and Classical Greek temples, these types of finds suggest that the deposi­tion of bronzes, particularly those related to warfare, was an important ritual ac­tivity in certain indigenous contexts, and was perhaps a privileged means of ritual practice, embodying a discourse limited to some part of the population. Interest­ingly, after 525 BCE, ritual treatment of bronze items decreases significantly, and in general items of unambiguously votive character become less archaeologically prominent. At the same time, public displays of wealth—largely through invest­ment in monumental building in central settlement locations—increased.

Similarly, multiple iterations of food and drink consumption become appar­ent in the Archaic period and later indicate different forms of ritual interaction. In some cases, such as with tombs 5 and 25 at Polizzello, continued visitation to and feasting around those particular graves continued into the early sixth cen­tury BCE, even while the acropolis was clearly becoming the main stage for ritual activity. In other cases, such as at Montagnoli di Menfi, Caltabellotta, Castelter­mini-Monte Roveto, Monte Raffe, and Sabucina, the continuity of older patterns of ritual food and drink consumption/offering is more apparent in the ceramic assemblages found in newly built sanctuaries. Classic styles such as the pedestal cup and plate continued to be used by at least part of those communities, sug­gesting that there was an effort to preserve traditional ritual customs surrounding comestibles. This evidence, however, has to also be seen against the exceptional shift toward two very specific ritual practices involving food and drink, that is, sacrifice and wine-drinking. In the pre-650 period, sacrifice is only evident in five ritual contexts in central-western Sicily; by 500 BCE, it is attested in over thirty, exponentially increasing over the course of the seventh and sixth centuries BCE. Moreover, though sacrifice resonates with a discourse of food offering, it is a more complicated text than simply the offering and/or consumption of meat, particularly considering that it was a rather new ritual phenomenon among in­digenous communities. The mounting evidence for animal sacrifice is paralleled by an increase in materials related to wine consumption. Libations and purifica­tions using wine were also likely practiced, but if the presence of specific vessel forms such as kotyliskoi, Ionic B1 and B2 cups, kylikes, and skyphoi are any indi­cation, the ritualized consumption of alcohol was an incredibly important part of indigenous religious activity: in the twenty-one sites that reported on ceramic types found around the sacred areas during excavation, 89.9 percent of the vessel forms were wine wares.