Material Bricolage? The Afterlife of Gold in the Orphic-Bacchic Lamellae
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7663176 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Colleen Elizabeth Kron (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 59-88 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Archiv für Religionsgeschichte (BOOK_SERIES) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1436-3038 • E-ISSN: 1868-8888 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/arege-2025-0004 |
| OpenAlex | W4417327953 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 30 |
This article narrates an object biography for one of the Orphic-Bacchic gold lamellae, “Tablet B” from Pelinna in Thessaly (Graf and Johnston 26b). Following the methodology of the “social life of things,” this biographical narrative focalizes seven stages in the life of the tablet: (1) acquiring gold material; (2) producing sheet gold; (3) cutting sheet gold to shape; (4) wearing as a crown or other jewelery; (5) inscribing; (6) folding and wearing; (7) death and burial. Distinguishing the many manufacturing chapters of a lamella’s life highlights its physical qualities of smallness, thinness, and lightness. The specialized requirements of goldworking technology for such small things suggest that most – if not all – of the gold tablets were recut or repurposed from other objects rather than purpose-made as Orphic amulets. This frequent reuse demonstrates the extent to which individual acts of initiation were a local and idiosyncratic phenomenon
Afterlife · Biography · Narrative · Ancient Near East History · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies
Instructions for the Netherworld
Dionysian and Orphic Eschatology
The cultural biography of things
Greek, Roman, and Etruscan Jewelry
Introduction
Chapter 17. A Joint Dedication of Demetrios Poliorketes and Stratonike in the Delian Artemision
Oral Bricolage And Ritual Context In The Golden Tablets
Accumulation, authority, and the cultural lives of objects
Introduction
Gold Has Many Uses
Gold in Antiquity
A New Gold Myrtle Wreath from Central Macedonia in the Collection of the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki
Exceptional Burials at the Sanctuary of Eukleia at Aegae (Vergina)
Bronze- and Ironworking in the Area of the Athenian Agora
Extra‐Ordinary People
Greek Magical Amulets
The Cultural Biography of a Pilgrimage Token
Going Beyond Multitexts
Defixiones from a Well Near the Southwest Corner of the Athenian Agora
Beyond the Grave
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |