Archeologists with the University of Ioannina have used decades of excavations on the Greek island of Ithaca to identify the site of a shrine that was the center of a cult to Odysseus, hero of Homer’s Odyssey.
News
Bronze age stone circle uncovered in Derbyshire, UK
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A standing stone in the Peak District, apparently an isolated monument, has been revealed as only one part of a standing circle and ritual complex that dates back 3700 years to England’s Bronze Age, according to archeologists with Forestry England.
Asia
The Eastern Steppe and Scythian Burial Practices
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Archaeological discoveries in the Eurasian steppe reveal striking parallels to Herodotus’s accounts of Scythian funerary rites. From sacrificed horses to towering burial mounds, these findings offer a haunting glimpse into ancient ritual practices—and their potential meaning for modern Pagans.
Europe
Maenads, satyrs, and initiates: friezes of Dionysiac mysteries uncovered in Pompeii
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Archaeologists have discovered a monumental frieze depicting worshipers of Dionysus in a newly excavated portion of Pompeii. The near-life-size paintings portray a procession of Dionysiac figures participating in an initiation ritual as part of the deity’s mystery cult.
Arts & Culture
“Oracles, Omens, and Answers” explores history of divination from tarot to TikTok
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A new exhibit at the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library explores thousands of years of practices in divination and prediction, from oracle bones to horoscope apps – and even includes demonstrations of the spider divination carried out by the Mambila people of Cameroon and Nigeria.
Arts & Culture
Danish museum returns a Roman emperor’s head to Turkey
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A bronze head of the Roman emperor Septimus Severus, illegally trafficked from a shrine where he had been worshiped as a deity in antiquity, will be repatriated from Denmark to Turkey.