Papers by Roger D Woodard
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jul 31, 2023
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jan 31, 2023
in all cultures gods claim possessions on earth. Two divine realms stand out: time and space. A p... more in all cultures gods claim possessions on earth. Two divine realms stand out: time and space. A perceptive scholar aptly described the religious feasts, in rome the feriae and dies festi, as "temporal possession of gods" (Jörg rüpke, Kalender und Öffentlichkeit: Die Geschichte der Repräsentation und religiösen Qualifikation von Zeit in Rom [berlin: de Gruyter, 1995], 492). Divine space manifested itself in rome in two distinct forms: there were places (loca) that were sacred (sacra), places that were holy (sancta), and places that were both sacred and holy (on this distinction, see more below). roman cult of the period illuminated by literature and monuments was a confluence of indo-european inheritance, etruscan and Greek elements, and home-grown italic, Latin, and roman innovations. The indian component of the indo-european tradition has been brought into prominence by the voluminous publications of Georges Dumézil and his theory of the trifunctional Proto-indo-european society: the three spheres were those of worship and legal writ, war, and work, with the classes of priests/governors, warriors, and producers and with the corresponding patron deities. in india we have Mitra and varuna, indra, and the As; vins and the castes of bra\ hman≥ a, ks≥ atriya, and ways; ya. Georges Dumézil demonstrated great ingenuity in applying this indian scheme to rome; see especially his summa, Archaic Roman Religion (english trans.: Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970). This theory has captivated many, especially among the linguists and popularizers; woodard is its ardent supporter. students of roman history and religion following the lead of Arnaldo Momigliano (and the indologist Jan Gonda) have been generally cautious; see recently Mary beard, John North, and simon Price, Religions of Rome I: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 14-16: while granting that "Dumézil's work has prompted much useful discussion about individual festivals or areas of worship in rome," they do not find any compelling evidence for his overarching scheme and observe that all this "theorizing shows us once more how powerful in accounts of early roman religion is the mystique of origins and schemata" (cf. in a similar vein, but concerning archaic rome in general and in particular the views of kurt Latte, Jerzy Linderski, Roman Questions II [stuttgart: steiner, 2007], 31-33, 595-96). woodard has made his name with studies in Greek and indo-european linguistics; his previous forays into the realm of roman religion were the notes to the Penguin translation of ovid's Fasti (2000) and a piece on "The Disruption
Understanding Relations Between Scripts II
Myth, Ritual, and the Warrior in Roman and Indo-European Antiquity
The Ancient Languages of Asia and the Americas
Language in Ancient Asia and the Americas: an introduction r o g e r d. w o o d a r d 1 O Br. has... more Language in Ancient Asia and the Americas: an introduction r o g e r d. w o o d a r d 1 O Br. haspati. When in giving names they first set forth the beginning of Language, Their most excellent and spotless secret was laid bare through love. 2 When the wise ones formed Language with their mind, purifying it like grain with a winnowing fan, Then friends knew friendships-an auspicious mark placed on their language. 3 Through sacrifice they tracked the path of Language, and within the poets found it. Bearing it, they spread it abroad-in many places; the seven singers together spoke it loud. 4 One looking did not see Language; another listening did not hear it; Language unfolds itself to another-like a wife, beautifully adorned and willing, to her husband. Rig-veda 10.71.1-4 The present volume covers far greater geographic space than any of its companion volumes: all of Asia is included-excepting the linguistically rich regions of Asia Minor, with Transcaucasia (see The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor) and southwest Asia (which readers will find covered within the volumes entitled The Ancient Languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Aksum and The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia)-as well as the American continents (or continent, as one prefers). Over half of the languages examined in the chapters that follow were spoken in ancient Iran, central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent; and of these, all were Indo-European languages, with the exception of the Dravidian language of Old Tamil. From more easterly Asian locales, the only language to be preserved out of antiquity is Chinese-the speech of a culture whose influence dominated ancient east Asia-occupying a position of prestige and primacy comparable to that of Egypt in the ancient Mediterranean world-and which, as the third millennium AD begins, gives every sign of being poised for resurgence in a world gone global. Continuing farther east, across the Bering Strait, one finds a place, the Americas, that provides only limited evidence for the linguistic life of its ancient peoples-all of it emanating from the cinctured waist of the continent(s) that is Central America. Of the languages described in the chapters that follow, the "oldest" is Sanskrit, an ancient language of India (see Ch. 2). Sanskrit is a member of the Indo-European language family, belonging to the subgroup called Indo-Iranian, which is itself divided into two branches: Indo-Aryan (or simply Indic) and Iranian. The earliest form of this "oldest" language, Sanskrit, is the one found in the ancient Brahmanic text called the Rig-veda, composed c. 1500 BC. The date makes Sanskrit one of the three earliest of the well-documented 1
The Textualization of the Greek Alphabet
The Textualization of the Greek Alphabet
Kadmos, 1986
The occurrence of Special Mycenaean features is limited to the works of a small number of scribal... more The occurrence of Special Mycenaean features is limited to the works of a small number of scribal hands. However, as explicitly stated by Gregory Nagy, 3 it is never the case that some scribal hand X exclusively uses Normal Mycenaean forms while some other hand Y uses only Special forms; instead, those few hands which exhibit Special Mycenaean characteristics do so infrequently and sporadically, while usually employing Normal Mycenaean forms. Apparently, those scribes utilizing Special Mycenaean forms were native speakers of a 'nonstandard' dialect who most often employed the 'standard' dialect but who occasionally lapsed into the use of their native speech.
The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology, 2007
The Ancient Languages of Europe
The Ancient Languages of Europe
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 2012
The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology, 2007
But as a rule the ancient myths [ palaious muthous [ are not found to yield a simple and consiste... more But as a rule the ancient myths [ palaious muthous [ are not found to yield a simple and consistent story, so that nobody need wonder if details of my recension cannot be reconciled with those given by every poet and historian. The editor trusts that he will be forgiven the presumptuousness (or audacity, as the case may be) of beginning with Robert Graves’s translation of Diodorus Siculus 4.44.5-6 - the lines that Graves prefixed to the preface of his work The Golden Fleece - lines that seem no less relevant here than at the outset of Graves' novelistic retelling (influenced by his experiences in the trenches of the Great War, no less than by Frazer’s Golden Bough ) of the ancient mythic tradition of the young hero Jason and his band of warrior comrades, who sailed from Greece on board the Argo to recover the fleece of a golden ram from distant Colchis. What we call “Greek myth” is no featureless monolith, but multifaceted, multifarious and multivalent, a fluid phenomenon, as was obvious to the historian Diodorus in the first century BC, and as is made plain by the essays that make up this Cambridge Companion . The chapters that follow are divided into three major parts. Sources and Interpretations , the first part of the three, consists of seven essays examining the forms and uses of Greek mythic traditions in Greek texts, ranging in period and genre from eighth-century BC oral poetry to encyclopedic prose compilations of the early centuries AD – from an era rich in a spontaneous performative creativity to one seemingly more concerned with documenting the mythic traditions of a glorious literary past. Yet even in the earliest attested periods, there is, as we shall see, evidence of a concern for preserving still more ancient forms and notions about gods and heroes.
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 2012
The Early Greek Alphabets, 2021
The Greek alphabet likely appeared as a functional writing system in the late ninth century BC in... more The Greek alphabet likely appeared as a functional writing system in the late ninth century BC in a particular eastern Mediterranean locale, but the process by which it took shape is one that stretched chronologically from that moment back into the Bronze Age, and geographically from Anatolia and Syria-Palestine, through Cyprus, to Pylos, Knossos, and other Mycenaean palace sites. This chapter examines that formative process as one characterized by various episodes of the transfer of knowledge between structured systems-transfers that left traces of operational elements of earlier, pre-alphabetic systems within the emerging alphabet. It further explores a scenario in which this alphabetic system could have plausibly found motivation and achieved functionality among non-literate Greeks operating within the multi-lingual and multi-graphic context of the complex armies of the Neo-Assyrian empire.
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Papers by Roger D Woodard
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[Actes du Septième colloque international d'anthropologie du monde indo-européen et de mythologie comparée]
Qu’il soit de souche divine ou de taille humaine, le héros n’est pas un personnage statique. Il se signale plutôt par l’élan qui l’envoie sillonner de lointaines contrées ou, plus modestement, le pourtour immédiat de son port d’attache. Loin d’être de tout repos, ces voyages l’invitent généralement à surmonter une série d’épreuves dont la traversée victorieuse lui assure un changement de qualité, de statut ou de nature, quand elle ne lui procure pas de conséquents avantages.
Le folklore des différentes provinces du monde indo-européen multiplie ces êtres emblématiques tantôt prisonniers d’un éprouvant destin, tantôt partis à la conquête d’un rêve, d’une terre ou d’eux-mêmes, quand ce faisceau de perspectives ne se conjugue pas. Tout au long de cet itinéraire aux reflets initiatiques, il arrive couramment que cet être d'exception laisse sur les lieux qu’il traverse des marques qui peuvent prendre la forme d’un culte, d’un temple, d’un rituel, d’une coutume ou d’une cité dont il instaure les fondements.
C’est à explorer les textes qui content le périple de quelques-unes des plus grandes figures héroïques indo-européennes et aux traces archéologiques qui balisent leur route que s’emploient ici quelques-uns des meilleurs spécialistes des différentes cultures du domaine pris en compte.
Avec les contributions de :
Alain Meurant,
Université catholique de Louvain
Nick J. Allen,
University of Cambridge
Dominique Briquel
Université Paris IV-Sorbonne
François Delpech
CNRS – Collège de France, Paris
Jean-Luc Desnier
Archéologies d’Orient et d’Occident
Marco V. García Quintela
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
Gaël Hily
Université de Rennes 2
Aleksandr Koptev
Helsinki, Finland
René Lebrun
Université catholique de Louvain et Institut Catholique de Paris
Dean A. Miller
University of Rochester
Claude Obsomer
Université catholique de Louvain
Facultés Notre-Dame de la Paix (Namur)
Jacques Poucet
Université de Louvain
Académie royale de Belgique
Pierre Sauzeau
Université de Montpellier
Bernard Sergent
CNRS (Paris)
Claude Sterckx
Institut des hautes études (Bruxelles)
Christophe Vielle
FRS-FNRS – Université catholique de Louvain
Roger D. Woodard
University of Buffalo
Détails et résumés des articles sur http://www.safran.be/proddetail.php?prod=HEROS