Gallery Talk, Musical Processions in Ancient and Premodern Ritual

Relief with Five Divinities: Zeus, Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, and Apollo, Roman, 25 B.C.E.–14 C.E

Relief with Five Divinities: Zeus, Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, and Apollo, Roman, 25 B.C.E.–14 C.E. Marble. Yale University Art Gallery, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr., Class of 1913, Fund

Religious rituals in antiquity were often punctuated by musical performances that served varied purposes, whether to amplify the tension before a sacrifice, offer a prayer to the divine, or gather worshippers together. Processions that took place within a ritual were often lavish sensory events, in which worshippers moved together in unison to musical sounds. Join Carolyn M. Laferrière, Postdoctoral Associate at Archaia: Yale Program for the Study of Ancient and Premodern Cultures and Societies, and curator of Sights and Sounds of Ancient Ritual, for a discussion of the relationship between music and processions in ancient and premodern rituals. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Sights and Sounds of Ancient Ritual.



Space is limited.