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Mystery religions, mystery cults, sacred mysteries or simply mysteries (Greek: μυστήρια), were religious schools of the Greco-Roman world for which participation was reserved to initiates (mystai). The main characteristic of these religious schools was the secrecy associated with the particulars of the initiation and the ritual practice ...
A votive plaque known as the Ninnion Tablet depicting elements of the Eleusinian Mysteries, discovered in the sanctuary at Eleusis (mid-4th century BC). The Eleusinian Mysteries (Greek: Ἐλευσίνια Μυστήρια, romanized: Eleusínia Mystḗria) were initiations held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at the Panhellenic Sanctuary of Eleusis in ancient Greece.
The original rite of Dionysus (as introduced into Greece) is associated with a wine cult (not unlike the entheogenic cults of ancient Central America), concerned with the grapevine's cultivation and an understanding of its life cycle (believed to have embodied the living god) and the fermentation of wine from its dismembered body (associated ...
Greek hero-cults were distinct from the clan-based ancestor worship from which they developed, [3] in that as the polis evolved, they became a civic rather than familial affair, and in many cases none of the worshipers traced their descent back to the hero any longer: no shrine to a hero can be traced unbroken from Mycenaean times.
After the huge Roman conquests beyond Greece, new cults from Egypt and Asia became popular in Greece as well as the western empire. Suppression and decline The initial decline of Greco-Roman polytheism was due in part to its syncretic nature, assimilating beliefs and practices from a variety of foreign religious traditions as the Roman Empire ...
The Isis cult developed its mysteries in response to the widespread belief that the Greek mystery cults had originated with Isis and Osiris in Egypt. [9] As the classicist Miguel John Verlsuys puts it, "For the Greeks, the image of Egypt as old and religious was so strong that they could not but imagine Isis as a mystery goddess."
Aleshire, Sara B. (1994). "Towards a Definition of 'State Cult' for Ancient Athens". In Hägg, Robin (ed.). Ancient Greek cult practice from the archaeological evidence : proceedings of the Second International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, organized by the Swedish Institute at Athens, 22-24 November 1991. Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athen ...
She published Theoi Megaloi: The Cult of the Great Gods at Samothrace, based on her doctoral dissertation, in 1986. [5] [6] Her second book, Landscapes, Gender, and Ritual Space: The Ancient Greek Experience, came out in 2004. [7] She has also worked on pigs in Ancient Greek culture. [8] [9]