Mystery Cults in Visual Representation in Graeco-Roman Antiquity

Nicole Belayche is professor emerita at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, PSL (Paris). Her research interests include pagan cults in the Roman Empire and analysis of rituals in the context of interactions, and she has recently co-edited Puissances divines à l’épreuve du comparatisme (2017). Francesco Massa, Ph.D., is assistant professor at the University of Fribourg. He is specialised in religious interactions in the Roman Empire, and is the author of Tra la vigna e la croce. Dioniso nei discorsi letterari e figurativi cristiani (2014).

Contents

List of Illustrations

List of Contributors



1 Mystery Cults and Visual Language in Graeco-Roman Antiquity: an Introduction

 Nicole Belayche and Francesco Massa



part 1: Do Images Depict Mystery Cults, and If So, How?

2 Sub-Introduction



3 Comment figurer l’ineffable, comment lire les images ?

 Cornelia Isler-Kerényi



4 Le phallus qui cache le mystère ? Les images dionysiaques dans les décors romains : à propos d’une fresque de la Domus Transitoria

 Stéphanie Wyler



5 Échos de la Télétè dionysiaque dans la mosaïque romaine tardive

 Janine Balty



part 2: Historiography and Images of Mystery Cults

6 Sub-Introduction



7 ‘The Seven Grades of Mithraism’, or How to Build a Religion

 Philippa Adrych



8 Les mystères isiaques et leurs expressions figurées. Des exégèses modernes aux allusions antiques

 Richard Veymiers



part 3: Depicting Objects to Signify Mystery Cults

9 Sub-Introduction



10 The Liknon and the Bundle: Does the Ritual ‘Initiatory’ Object Make the Mystery?

 Anne-Françoise Jaccottet



11 The Cista, a Hallmark of Mater Magna’s Mysteries in the Roman World?

 Françoise Van Haeperen



Selected Bibliography

Index