Tuesday, February 5, 2008

(Pre) Zeus on the Loose

NYT article about excavations at Mount Lykaion, in the region of Greece known as Arcadia. Digging in a sactuary to Zeus, archeologists have come across the remains of sacrifices estimated to date from around 3000 BCE, nearly a millenium before the arrival of the Greek-speaking peoples who established Zeus as the pre-eminent deity of the land.

The article makes some interesting observations about how cultures adopt and transform pre-existing religious traditions as their own.