The cult statues of the Ptolemies and the Attalids

Olga Palagia

p. 65-81

Résumé

The Ptolemaic ruler cult was established in Alexandria already in the reign of Ptolemy I Soter and became further institutionalized under his son, Ptolemy II. Cult statues of the deified rulers were placed in both Greek and Egyptian temples as temple-sharing gods; dynastic cult statues are also attested in private settings and in the Ptolemaic possessions in the Aegean. The evidence for cult statues of the Attalids at Pergamon is confined to the reigns of Attalos II and Attalos III but there was at least one cult statue of Attalos I in Athens in his capacity as eponymous hero of the city.

Remerciements

I am grateful to Stefano Caneva for inviting me to a very interesting seminar and for his constructive criticism. Thanks are due to the seminar participants for their comments and to Stephen Tracy for epigraphical advice. I am also indebted to Demetrios Pandermalis for permission to study the fragmentary Ptolemaic heads (Figs. 9-10) in the storerooms of the Akropolis Museum, and to Hans R. Goette for the photos of Figs. 2, 3 and 8.


Extrait

Introduction

1Our understanding of ruler cults can be enhanced by the physical appearance of the statues of sovereigns which could be installed to become recipients of ritual action in temples or in open-air shrines, not only inside kingdoms but also in dependent or allied cities, and even in private houses. The materials and techniques used for the creation of statues, as well as their place of exhibition, when known, allow us to make inferences about their cultic destinations. The divine attributes of royal statues, which point to the sovereigns’ association with particular deities, shed further light on the visual aspects of the process of deification and therefore help us understand the significance that these cultic images had for subjects as well as in the religious self-representation of rulers. This paper investigates the choices made by two Hellenistic dynasties, the Ptolemies and the Attalids, by exploring their similarities and differences and by paying particular at

Les formats HTML, PDF et ePub de cet ouvrage sont accessibles aux usagers des bibliothèques qui l’ont acquis dans le cadre de l’offre OpenEdition Freemium for Books. L’ouvrage pourra également être acheté sur les sites des libraires partenaires, aux formats PDF et ePub, si l’éditeur a fait le choix de cette diffusion commerciale. Si l’édition papier est disponible, des liens vers les librairies sont proposés sur cette page.


Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.