Bodies of Evidence: Ancient Anatomical Votives Past, Present and Future

From Pharaonic Egypt to Roman Italy and from Classical Greece to the Byzantine world and beyond, the anatomical votive has performed a continuous, if only partially understood role in ritual and healing practice. Made from terracotta, stone, metal and wood, these arms, legs, eyes, hands, uteri, genitals, internal organs and other parts of body have attracted attention from scholars exploring past religion and health alike. However, despite widespread academic and popular fascination with this material, the category of ‘anatomical votive’ remains distinctly ill-defined and is yet to be integrated fully into the study of ritual or the material culture of the body. There currently exists no major study which reunites these disparate body parts into a coherent assessment of the phenomenon, or which addresses the complexity of multiple meanings attributed to particular types and the significance of the ever-present power of the fragmented body within discourses of healing, medicine, religion and body identity. Bringing together scholars working on the anatomical offering as a distinctive form of artefact, this volume provides the first comprehensive analysis of this class of material and its consequences for understanding some of the most fundamental engagements with the human body.