Moscow University
Anthropology
Bulletin
Anthropology
Bulletin
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Anuchin Institute and Museum of Anthropology, Mochovaya st., 11, Moscow, 125009, Russia
Shpak Larisa Y., PhD., larusparus@mail.ru
Introduction. The early art of Europe is represented by a large amount of pictorial information associated with religious and cultic activities and related to the presentation of a person in it. Ancient man’s images are interpreted by art historians, archaeologists, culturologists, but rarely specialists in human biology. Anthropologists are particularly interested in the iconography of these cults, expressed in the form of naturalistic (anatomical) images of a person, the classification of these objects and their features in connection with regional distribution. Materials and methods. Literary sources on this subject have been analyzed and illustrative sources in the form of illustrative material in the literature and in the form of electronic collections of anatomical votives in museums are considered. Results and discussion. A huge number of dedicatory items of various iconography, known since the Neolithic Age, are actively manifested in healing and saving cults in the Iron Age. The iconography of dedicate practice in the ancient Mediterranean is diverse, but the so-called anatomical votives (ex-votos) deserve the attention of an anthropologist. Votives are associated with the ancient practice of healing in the sanctuaries of Asclepius and other ancient saving deities and represented by images of the human body, its parts, and internal organs. Massively presented in terracotta and bronze in the form of various parts of the body and internal organs, they spread to the Mediterranean (Greece, Magna Greece, Etruria, Latium) since the 6th century, but was particularly active in the 4th-2nd centuries BC, which is associated with Roman expansion and the maintenance of healing cults in the provinces. The typology of anatomical votives and the features of their depiction testify to the individual nature of the cult. The features of the distribution testify to the characteristic regional and chronological differences of the figurative form and style of the votives. The dissemination of types of votives by some researchers is associated with the specialization of sanctuaries in specific types of healing. The modern interpretation of the anatomical motives and the origin of this cult is not fully understood. The exponential stay of new archaeological data and their rethinking allows specialists to doubt the traditional idea of the reasons for the distribution of anatomical votives and the semantic of it. Conclusion. Anatomical votives represent a kind of cultural and historical phenomenon of syncretism of religion, art and ancient natural science, which is the equivalent of authentic expression and narrative transformation of the level of knowledge of the Etruscans, Latins and Greeks about human biology and medicine in antiquity through the plastic form.
anatomical images of a person; ancient medicine; Mediterranean; Ancient Italy; Etruscans; ancient Italics; ancient Greeks
DOI: 10.32521/2074-8132.2018.3.102-117
Цит.: Shpak L.Yu. The ancient Mediterranean anatomical votives: the cultural and historical phenomenon of the representation of biological and medical knowledge (from literary sources) // Moscow University Anthropology Bulletin (Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Seria XXIII. Antropologia), 2018; 3/2018; с. 102-117
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