Where are the priests? Constructing ritual mastery in Punic shrines.

WHERE ARE THE PRIESTS?

Ritual Mastery in Punic Shrines

Mireia López-Bertran

1 INTRODUCTION

This paper explores the concept of ritual mastery and the existence or no-nexistence of priests in two Phoenician and Punic rural shrines of Eivissa (Balea-ric Islands, Spain) dated between the sixth and the second centuries BCE. Tradi-tionally, priests have been the focus of analysis in religious and ritual contexts of the ancient Mediterranean because literary sources and epigraphy have provided us with abundant information concerning their clothes, activities, responsibilities, or sacrifice taxes. It is my intention to look for other parameters through which to analyse rituals in these rural shrines. Considering rituals as bodily practices allows us to look at ritual participants as active protagonists who achieve so-called ritual mastery, which is a corporeal ability to deploy schemes of ritualisation. Conse-quently, the presence of priests may have not been necessary in these contexts.

In order to achieve this objective, the paper is organized into the following sections: first, I shall present the theoretical methodology for approaching the subjects of ritual mastery and ritualisation. Second, I shall offer a brief intro-duction to the identity of the Phoenicians and the Punics and to the way scholars have studied their religious and ritual activities. Third, a description of the shrines and their features will be presented. Finally, the discussion shall focus on the search for other parameters – beyond the existence of priests – as a basis for an analysis of the presence of ritual specialists in the rural shrines. This shall be done through the application of the concept of ritual mastery.

2 RITUALS AS EMBODIED PRACTICES AND THE RITUAL MASTERY

Traditionally, rituals have been interpreted as irrational and odd activities and have been seen as fundamentally different from daily activities. In fact, scholars often look at rituals as well-defined boxes, in which all the activities and materials inexplicable by our rational knowledge are placed. With this methodology the ritual term appears as a universal and unique idea to explain many situations chronologically and geographically separate. This approach renders ‘ritual’ into a universal and singular concept, which can uniformly explain situations in diverse chronological and geographical contexts. This approach defines rituals as highly

44 Mireia López-Bertran

formal, repetitive, mechanical, and instinctive actions and does not allow them to be analysed as specific activities. Consequently, we need to look for other formu-las to explain these phenomena, moving away from their universal and irrational features.1

In fact, Catherine Bell’s2 theories on ritual suggest a new approach based on the concept of ritualisation. This term defines rituals in terms of practices in order to break their generic assumptions. Based on Bourdieu’s ‘practice theory’,3 Bell argues that focusing on practices allows us to realize human activities as strategies that reproduce and reformulate cultural settings. Interpreting rituals as practices allows us to study them in a new way: perceiving them as actions, we can take into account to what extent – and how – they are different from other practices.

According to this view, ritualisation is a common feature of rituals; rituals are ways of acting. One ritual differs from another because of what people do and how they do it. In other words, focus on ritualisation means looking at rituals as daily actions, which are overemphasized for different reasons. With this approach rituals no longer appear as strange activities separated from everyday life – as is the traditional view –, but they can be studied in connection with it.4 Food and food consumption are good cases in point for this approach. In a vast majority of ritual contexts, religious or not, the archaeological record shows evidence of food processing and consumption (bone remains, cooking and eating vessels). These actions are common maintenance activities. However, in ritual contexts various strategies emphasize their special character: sharing food with divinities, com-mensality and so on.

Rituals are not odd experiences, but concrete practices that people do in diffe-rent contexts. From this perspective another essential feature of ritualisation emerges, namely its link with bodies and places. On the one hand, people perform rituals with and through their bodies: singing, praying, or walking are ways of creating rituals. On the other hand, these practices cause the transformation of places, as they are perceived as a special kind of space. Both body and space are engaged in a circular relationship; the one cannot be understood without conside-ring the other.

A ritualised body achieves ‘ritual mastery’. Bell defines it as ‘practical mastery of the schemes of ritualisation as an embodied knowing, as the sense of ritual seen in its exercise’.5 As something related to a given context, the concept of ritual mastery reinforces the idea of rituals as existing in specific cultural communities. Thus, ritual mastery is the ability to take schemes of a given culture in order to deploy them in a specific ritual experience.6

1 Bell 1992, 69f.; Brück 1999; Bradley 2003. 2 Bell 1992, 74f. 3 Bourdieu 1990. 4 Bell 1992, 81f.; Bradley 2003, 12f. 5 Bell 1992, 107. 6 Bell 1992, 116.

Ritual Mastery in Punic Shrines 45

Possessing ritual mastery is related to having a specific sense of ritual: to know what to perform. As I shall explain, this feature is not only possessed by priests but also by each participant.

3 RELIGION AND RITUALS IN PHOENICIAN AND PUNIC STUDIES

The so-called Phoenician trade diaspora is basically a Tyrian movement of people which aimed at establishing trading posts in a network of settlements from the shores of the Levantine coast and Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean, Portugal and Morocco.7 It started in the ninth century BCE, and by the seventh century a dense network of settlements can be observed, for in-stance on the southern coast of Spain. Since the Phoenicians were not one single and unified community, differences between areas should be considered.

‘Phoenician’ is a term of Greek origin recorded in Archaic texts, mainly referring to people living on the Levantine coast of the eastern Mediterranean and to merchants frequenting the Aegean. However, the Phoenicians never gave this name to themselves. Instead, they called themselves by the Semitic term Can’ani. Traditionally, archaeologists and historians refer to coastal Syrian and Palestinian peoples under the unifying label of ‘Phoenicians’. Scholars have advocated the unity of the Phoenicians on the basis of an ethnic reality documented by geo-graphy, language, culture, and historical development regardless of regional differences and temporal changes.8

Not unlike the name ‘Phoenicians’, the name ‘Punic’ is just a literary label re-corded in classical texts.9 The Punics are considered descendants of the Phoenici-ans in cultural and sociological terms; hence, scholars normally use the concept of ‘Phoenician-Punic’ to refer to these cultures.10 This term neither designates a uni-form culture evident in the archaeological record nor a coherent identity of a certain ethnic group. Thus, we broadly speak of a Punic world sharing economic and cultural connections in the western Mediterranean – mainly Eivissa, South Iberia, North Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia. It should be stressed that no metropolis has ever been identified, which assumed a leading role in these developments through time, although Carthage may have had this role during the Second Punic War, at the end of the third century and in the second century BCE. For this reason we should distinguish between ‘Punic’ and ‘Carthaginian’, the later being a particular area of the Punic culture, albeit with a hegemonic economic and cultural visibility in some areas of the western Mediterranean.11 7 Aubet 2001. 8 Moscati 1993, 79. 9 Prag 2006. 10 Among the many handbooks on Phoenician and Punic societies, we single out Aubet 1997,

who offers an overview of the Phoenician diaspora to the western Mediterranean (from the eighth to the sixth centuries BCE), and Lancel 1995, who focuses on the Punic period (sixth to second centuries BCE) and more specifically on the development of Carthage.

11 Van Dommelen and Gómez Bellard 2008, 238.


Religious studies have mainly focused on the role of religion in colonial con-texts. It has been stated that most of the main Phoenician and Punic colonies, co-pying a model of the main metropolis in the Levant,12 had a religious structure based on a divine couple (god and goddess) worshipped in a temple which spon-sored and were supposed to have run the development of cities. Hence, the com-mon approach to the study of religion consists in the study of divinities based on archaeological and epigraphic sources and in the description of sanctuaries based on archaeological remain and written sources. Indeed, Phoenician-Punic religious studies are primarily based on indirect sources, as scholars search to identify in the material evidence what is referred to in the Graeco-Roman literary sources.13 Nevertheless, this methodology poses some problems, since the Greek and Latin written sources are not free of bias.

Furthermore, most interpretations of religion and rituals are functionalist, in the sense that religion and rituals are regarded as means through which colonial expansion was legitimated and commercial exchanges were controlled. For in-stance the main Phoenician god, Melqart, is the patron of commercial activities. When new colonies were founded, temples were among the first buildings to be erected in order to maintain emotional links with the metropolis, to establish con-tacts with the indigenous population, and to offer refuge to seafarers.14

The economic role of temples has also been pointed out. They were not only places of worship but also warehouses of goods, especially of metal objects both in the form of votive offerings and of payments for the conclusion of commercial deals. Priests may have played an essential role as agents in these transactions. Thus, the temples of the main colonies may have ruled and managed the eco-nomy; sanctuaries may have had their own property and workers and, in fact, ac-cording to some sources, even slaves.15

In the context of cultural contacts, religion is an essential means of esta-blishing political relations, and the Phoenicio-Punic culture is not an exception. The foundation legend of Carthage is one of the clearest examples: the Phoenici-ans who created this new city were members of the elite and were accompanied by priests and priestesses.16 Likewise, some temples played a crucial part in legiti-mating new political situations. For instance, the temple of Melqart-Heracles in Cádiz (Iberian Peninsula) was used by Punic kings as a symbol of their power and prestige, exercised and obtained through their conquest of southern Iberia.17

According to this approach there is a great deal of information concerning the role of priests: the stelae from the cemeteries of Carthage depict priests perfor-ming rituals (figure 1), and the Old Testament along with some Greek and Latin authors describe their appearance. Their heads were shaved, they were barefoot

12 Xella 1981 and 1986; Lipinski 1995. 13 Ribichini 1985 and 1995, 32; Ferrer 2002 and 2004. 14 Van Berchem 1967; Bunnens 1979; Grottanelli 1981; Wachsman 1998, 323f. 15 Ribichini 1985, 29f.; Alvar 1999; Berges 1998. 16 Aubet 1997, 132f. 17 López Castro 1998, 95.


and dressed in white fabrics.18 The Phoenician word for priest was kohin and thanks to some preserved price lists, we know that priests used to receive a part of the animal they sacrificed and sometimes even some money as payment for the performance of the sacrifice.19

Figure 1. Representation of a Phoenician-Punic priest from the cemetery of Carthage.

This brief outline shows how religious studies are devoted to two interrelated topics: the official or public religion of the main and large centres and its workers, the priests. By contrast, little attention has been given to other dimensions of reli-gion and rituals, for example, to shrines with different features (smaller size, lo-cation in rural or indigenous areas, sacralised places) and to their users, as oppo-sed to gods and priests. In other words, the agency of ritual performers has been neglected precisely because the study of rituals has been mainly concerned with identifying in the archaeological record what is explained by the literary sources.20

But, from an archaeological point of view, it is necessary to look at the mate-rials in different ways in order to achieve a better understanding of Phoenicio-Punic ritual performances. In my view, the anthropological theories that link ritu-als and practices provide the best analytical lenses. As explained above, the theory of ritualisation is useful for the treatment of these issues.

3 PHOENICIAN-PUNIC EIVISSA AND ITS SHRINES

In order to discuss the aforementioned subjects I shall focus on two shrines on Eivissa (Balearic Islands, Spain; figure 2). The island of Eivissa was first settled in the final centuries of the third millennium BCE. From that moment until the arrival of the Phoenicians during the seventh century BCE, the island remained practically uninhabited. The Phoenicians settlers – allegedly from southern Spain – set foot on the island in the mid-seventh century BCE and established two small

18 García Bellido 1969, 129; Hours-Miedan 1951. 19 Amadasi Guzzo 1988 and 2003, 145. 20 López-Bertran 2007, 228.


settlements on the east coast of the island, located less than 10 kilometers from each other, one at Sa Caleta21 and the other at Eivissa town (Es Soto). By the end of the seventh century, Sa Caleta was abandoned and all inhabitants seem to have moved to Eivissa town.

Figure 2. Map of Eivissa showing the location of the shrines discussed in this article.

Looking at Eivissa town more closely, the settlement itself is not very well known, but the cemetery, called Puig des Molins, has been extensively excavated, published and studied, providing us with fresh evidence concerning the inhabi-tants of the island and their funerary rituals. The earliest inhabitants of Eivissa maintained close connections with the Phoenician settlements in Andalusia (southern Spain) and with indigenous settlements on the east coast of Spain. The island has been labeled an important port-of-call on the main shipping routes across the western Mediterranean.22 But, from the mid-sixth century BCE on-wards, the island came into much closer contact with the central Mediterranean, namely Carthage, as can be inferred from the burial evidence. During the fifth century, the town gradually expanded and by the turn of the century a number of small rural sites appeared elsewhere on the island. Not until the third century did the whole island become populated by rural settlements.23 Indeed, the shrines that I shall discuss here are connected with both moments of expansion: Illa Plana was founded by the end of the sixth and the beginning of the fifth century, when po-pulation is recorded at the hinterland of Eivissa town. Es Culleram was establis-

21 Ramon 2007. 22 Gómez Bellard 2008, 47. 23 Van Dommelen and Gómez Bellard 2008, 5-12.


hed when the area of Sant Vicent Valley was settled by a number of rural farms. I shall analyze both shrines, not only questioning the possible presence of priests, but also studying the material culture in order to identify the agency of the partici-pants.

Although Illa Plana is today on solid ground, during the Phoenician and Punic occupations it was an island in the middle of Ibiza bay, not far from the harbour (figure 2). Illa Plana has been defined as a sacralized natural site because no structures have been found, except for two votive deposits. The first deposit was empty, whereas the other pit contained only 31 human terracottas, dated between the end of the sixth century BCE and the mid-fifth century BCE.24 The figurines were produced with the same technique: the body and the head were modelled on a potter’s wheel, and the most significant parts of the body (e.g. eyes, mouth, genitalia, and arms) were added later through incisions, perforations, and by attaching clay pieces. This explains why every single figurine shows different performances, postures, and actions. On the basis of a close examination of these figurines I shall ask the question how ritual mastery is embodied through body decoration and gender.

Es Culleram is a cave-sanctuary on the southern hillside of the San Vicente Valley, 150 meters above sea level and only one and a half kilometers from the sea. It is not easily accessible and the cave offers an excellent view of the sea. It is, moreover, located at a strategic point, as it is in the middle of the route which connects the interior of the island with the coast.25

Figure 3. Layout of Es Culleram.

The cave is divided into three main rooms (figure 3): first, there is an artificial hall (figure 3.2); second, a big area with very low ceiling (between 1.5 and 2 m) is 24 Hachuel and Marí 1988. 25 Aubet 1982, 45.


made up of different spaces (figure 3.3); finally, the ‘holy of holies’ is formed by an oval room with a height of five meters (figure 3.4). In addition there is a cistern at the entrance of the cave (figure 3.1). The cave was used from the fourth to the second century BCE reaching its highest peak of activity during the third century.26

A large number of finds were recovered from the cave when it was first explored in 1907 and 1908, including 788 terracotta figurines. Unfortunately, no information whatsoever was recorded concerning their contexts. The finds include coins, two possible baetyls, two gold medallions, and two Punic inscriptions dedicated to the goddess Tanit and the god Reshef-Melqart respectively. Signifi-cant amounts of pottery were also found, in particular cooking, eating and drinking vessels as well as some amphorae. A substantial portion of these vessels is much smaller size than the usual size; clearly, they were not intended for regular usage. Nevertheless, large quantities of animal bones, almost exclusively of sheep and goat, show that eating and drinking were regular activities in or outside the cave and suggest that sacrificial meals were a significant feature of the rituals performed at Es Culleram. Careful analysis of the faunal remains has also shown that most of the animal skulls were burnt and that the animals had been butchered at the cave itself.27

4 BETWEEN PRIESTS AND RITUAL AGENTS

As we have seen above, Phoenician and Punic religious and ritual studies have mainly focused on the role of priests, assuming that they were fundamental elements of the organization of the religious system and of the structure of the temple. These assumptions may be plausible when analysing main temples in cities; but what happened in small and somewhat isolated shrines like the ones presented here, Illa Plana and Es Culleram?

Priests have been defined as highly specialized workers with a lot of power, prestige, and wealth. Besides, it has been argued that they used to live within the sacred precinct. In some Phoenician and Punic examples, both written sources and material culture suggest that priests had private areas where they used to live close to the temples.28 However, to apply the concept of priests everywhere in antiquity without differentiations, expresses a modern, western way of interpreting rituals. Priests are essential in many contemporary religions, especially in monotheist religions such as Christianity because they govern the performances, whereas the participants are an audience with a passive role, following the priest’s instruc-tions.29

26 Ramon 1985, 233f.; Gómez Bellard and Vidal González 2000, 112. 27 Aubet 1982; Ramon 1985; Morales Pérez 2003. 28 For instance in a shrine of south Iberia called la Algaida; see Corzo 1992. 29 Bell 1992, 131.


When we analyse rituals from the point of view of ritualization, it is useful to look for alternative explanations, beyond the role of priests. Taking into consideration what people do in rituals will allow us to define the active role of all the participants and explain the absence of priests. In fact, if we define priests as full-time workers characterised by the aforementioned features, then there were no priests in the Eivissa shrines. On the one hand, there are no architectural remains in Illa Plana, which can be identified as either a temple or a priest’s house. On the other hand, Es Culleram is a cave, and there is only evidence of intermittent worshipping practices, not of permanent habitation.

The material remains recovered from both shrines are suitable for the study of both the presence of ‘ritual specialists’ and of the ritual mastery of all the participants, in other words for the study of the ritual agency of all the performers. From my perspective, rather than exclusively focusing on the existence of priests, it is more fruitful to look for ritual mastery, as this approach is free of the traditional biases. I shall identify the agency of both participants, specialists and non-specialists, through different strategies. On the one hand I shall analyze the corporeality of the clay figurines of Illa Plana. On the other hand, I shall study the spatial organization and the distribution of material culture of Es Culleram.

4.1 The shrine of Illa Plana

Illa Plana is a remarkable example suitable for an analysis of how rituals are embodied, which is to say how they are created by the body movement and the decoration of the participants. In fact, if we assume that the human figurines may represent the visitors of the shrine, a heterogeneous panorama emerges as regards the presence or absence of ritual specialists. I shall study the body decoration and the body gestures of the figurines, in order to analyse ritual agency.

Starting with body decoration, one observes that only some figurines display it. Decoration is an essential part of the treatment of the body. It creates and maintains identity and social differentiation between those who wear adornments and those who do not and indeed between different types of adornment (figures 4 and 5). In the case of the figurines from Illa Plana, decoration consists of necklaces, headdresses, and the use of incense-burners. Instead of associating decoration with priests, I argue that decorated figurines may be seen as representations of ritual experts or people with some degree of ritual mastery. I argue further that ritual mastery is embodied through decoration. Decoration not only expresses different identities, but also creates them. This means that bodies are not simply decorated, but that they are ‘decorated bodies’. Bearing a special hairstyle or jewelry is an intentional act, which constructs status and conveys it to others.

As we have seen above, ritualisation strategies are closely linked to bodies, as bodies are the instruments through and with which rituals are performed. In that sense, it is likely that ritual specialists construct their role both through their body decorations and through their genders. This is remarkable, because most of the decorated figurines may be seen as having a third or hybrid gender, as they


possess penises and breasts. Typologically, these figurines belong to the group of bird-headed figurines, which probably represent individuals who wear bird masks.30

Figure 4. Decorated clay figurines from Illa Plana.

Figure 5. Decorated clay figurines from Illa Plana.

30 López-Bertran, forthcoming.


Taking into consideration the insights provided by theories of gender perfor-mativity,31 figurines wearing masks and having penises may not represent males, but a new gender based on the hybridity between human and non-human. In the case of the individuals represented by these figurines, I consider gender as a per-formance: gender is like a fancy dress, which denies an intrinsic and internal se-xual identity. This example shows that in the context of ritual performance gender is not a natural or biological property but a cultural construct. Through perfor-mances and actions – by wearing masks, necklaces, and hats – a new personhood and a new gender is created. As ethnographical studies show (for instance the case of dos-espíritus in San Francisco32), ritual specialists, mainly shamans, are men who are given other sexual attributes, creating a separate gender that transgresses the bipolar heterosexual scheme. For whatever reasons, they have some special knowledge about the practices that have to be carried out during the performance of rituals and they become experts in mediating between the rest of the partici-pants and the gods or supernatural powers. Thus, these specialists cannot be con-sidered priests, not only because this was not their exclusive occupation, but also because they may not have lived in Illa Plana.

The presence of these specialists does not imply that the rest of the participants had a passive role. Indeed, from the point of view of ritualisation, worshippers are able to agree or disagree with the practices of ritual specialists because they have their own ritual mastery; they know what they were expected to do and how to do it. Hence, they have the ability to accept or reject what the specialists perform; in other words, they have their own empowerment, understood as the ability to recognize, accept, or reject the practices of the experts.33

This balanced relation between ritual specialists and the rest of the participants is demonstrated and embodied through the representation of gestures and allusions to the senses in the figurines of Illa Plana. Figurines that represent both specialists (seven out of thirty one figurines) and non-specialists (twenty four figurines) are modelled doing the same actions. The most common is touching some parts of the body, such as the genitalia, breasts, and head (figures 4 and 5). Furthermore, there is a typical gesture which concerns everyone: the gesture of prayer. There is a group which represents opened hands, a typical gesture of the praying individual in the Middle East and the ancient Mediterranean (figure 6).34

In the same way, the faces of all the figurines show that the sensory experi-ences seem to have been the same for everyone, regardless of their states as specialists or non-specialists. Indeed, the most accurately represented parts of the figurines are clearly those that are related to the senses. Heads and faces are es-sential parts of the body because they express individual identification and be-

31 Butler 1993. 32 Voss 2008, 39. 33 Bell 1992, 107. 34 López-Bertran 2007, 186f.


cause it is here that the sense organs are located.35 An approach that focuses on embodiment has to be accompanied by a study of the senses, since it is through the senses that we perceive and create corporealities and gestures.

Figure 6. Representation of the gesture of prayer in figurines from Illa Plana and on stelae from

Carthage.

The approach that considers the senses defines them as cultural constructs, not as natural, biological, and psychological elements. Accordingly, the senses have specific meanings and clearly have a hierarchical aspect, reflecting social order. A study of how the senses are indicated through the representation of the mouth, the ears, the eyes, the hands, and the nose in the figurines of Illa Plana will provide a basis for the discussion of ritual agency among the ‘non-ritual specialists’.

Some terracottas are represented with a large open mouth, as if they were sin-ging, praying, chanting, or lamenting. Indeed, the human voice is one of the most ancient music instruments. Singing may have been a way of preserving traditions, of transmitting ideals, and of offering education, and this activity would have been performed by everyone, whether a specialist or not. Sight and smell appear to be other significant senses as they are indicated by big, open eyes and large noses. The importance attributed to sight and smell is highly significant. The eyes would have been essential not only as an allusion to watching the performances carried out in the rituals in which figurines were used, but also as an allusion to symbolic vision and to a relationship with divinities or to other fantastic beings.

Equally, smell was considered an essential sense in antiquity as it was related to hygienic practices and the application of pleasant odours through the burning of perfumes or oils.36 This is clearly demonstrated by the figurines which hold oil-lamps (figure 5). Furthermore, smoke would have been considered as a means of

35 Meskell and Joyce 2003, 31; Joyce 2005, 146. 36 Classen 1993, 7.


the establishing a communication between the figurines, the participants, and the gods.37

Also hearing is significant. The ears of these figures are accurately re-presented, indicating perhaps the importance of music and sounds in performing rituals.38 These materials suggest that hearing was an important aspect in these ritual contexts, perhaps in order to establish contact with divinities and to receive their messages.

The only significant difference between specialists and non-specialists regar-ding senses concerns touching. In fact, only the figurines, whose decoration de-fined them as ritual specialists, are represented with hands touching genitalia. This observation leads us to consider the role of sexual activities or fertility linked to ritual specialists. It has been argued that these figurines aim at promoting and protecting fertility, either female or male. However, as some scholars have pointed out, the emphasis on fecundity is related to the influence of Christian ideas in explaining religious phenomena in antiquity, thus rejecting other possibi-lities related to sexual practices as ritual performances.39 I suggest that the explicit representation of genitalia can be interpreted as ritualised sexual activities. The representation of genitalia seems to be a form of ritualisation, because it re-presents a mode of emphasising the role of sex. Indeed, the role of sex would be essential for reproduction or pleasure in daily lives. Thus it seems reasonable that sexual activities were performed as part of rituals; this is reflected in the material evidence illustrated not only through the representation of genitalia but also through the figurines touching the sexual organs.

In brief, the figurines of Illa Plana show a heterogeneous panorama regarding the relation between specialists and non-specialists. Although there are differences in body decoration and in some practices such as touching the genitalia, all the participants share the same gestures and have access to the same appeal to the senses and sensations, such as singing, praying, or smelling perfumes. Thus, they share ritual mastery and the participants possessed their own agency.

4.2 The cave of Es Culleram

In Es Culleram permanent presence of priests is unlikely. The geological condi-tions of the cave and its size do not allow it to serve as a place of habitation. Furthermore, there is no evidence to support the existence of sites in its immediate vicinity, although there is an abundance of small rural settlements in the area of the valley. However, the cave itself and the materials recorded shed light to the question of the empowerment of the participants and their ritual mastery.

As we have already mentioned, Es Culleram displays a clear division of space, clearly marking the ritual movements of the participants (figure 3). Upon their arrival visitors would have taken a bath or drank water as purification, as we

37 Meskell and Joyce 2003. 38 Lawson, Scarre, Cross, and Hills 1998, 124; López-Bertran and Garcia-Ventura 2008. 39 Meskell and Joyce 2003, 116.


may infer from the existence of a cistern just outside the cave. Inside the cave, visitors began both a physical and symbolic journey from the outer to the inner world. First, they stayed in the hall, a transitional or liminal area, and thereafter would have entered the cave. There they would have encountered two areas: the small rooms with low ceilings and the ‘holy of holies’, a big room of 3 meters in height.

But would everybody have access to all three areas? Although there is no direct evidence, it is plausible to assume that only a small group of ritual specialists would have had access to the ‘holy of holies’ to perform specific rites. It is well known from the sources that in the city temples only the priests could enter the ‘holy of holies’. Thus, it is also plausible that something similar occurred in cave-shrines.

But did this possible difference between specialists and non-specialists result in different ritual experiences among the participants? Through the study of the material culture recovered from the cave, I shall argue that this is not the case. Votive offerings and fragments of pottery are found throughout the cave, indicating that people would have performed the same ritual practices everywhere in the cave and, thus, that they may have been exposed to similar ritual experiences. Indeed, oil-lamps and incense-burners are not numerous, and consequently lack of light would have increased the appeal to the other senses, touching and hearing, especially in a cave that produced echoes.

The atmosphere produced by the lack of visibility and the diffusion of various smells and fumes in a small area would have facilitated the religious experiences of all the participants, specialist or otherwise. Moreover, the presence of a large number of cooking and eating vessels as well as faunal remains reveals the importance of eating and drinking as ritual practices. Mortars and miniature bowls were found as well. Taking into account the fact that the function of these objects may be interpreted in connection with the use of psychoactive substances, it is possible that all visitors would have eaten and drunk such substances in order to achieve altered states of consciousness. Essentially, travelling to the cave-shrines is not only a physical journey but also a spiritual one, and this experience would have affected everyone. We, however, cannot pursue this topic further and determine if they were differences regarding the intensity of the experience.

So, again in Es Culleram, we have a balanced relation between the possible presence of specialists and the rest of the visitors. Although perhaps not every one could have had access to the ‘holy of holies’, every area seems to reveal the same ritual practices, such as the consumption of food, beverages, and perhaps other substances. In other words, all the participants would have had adequate agency and knowledge to deploy these rituals.

4.3 Discussion

As regards the criteria according to which an individual can be considered a ritual specialist, no secure evidence exists. Nevertheless, a hypothesis can be put forward. It has been stated that Illa Plana and Es Culleram are shrines with very


strong maritime features. The former is a small island in the middle of the Eivissa bay located next to the harbour (see figure 2), a very busy area in antiquity. The latter has good visibility of the seascape. If we assume that seafarers were among the people who performed rituals in both shrines, then we can shed light on the identification of the ‘ritual specialists’. Indeed, some seafarers could become ‘ritual specialists’ thanks to their specific maritime knowledge and experience. Similarly, the inhabitants of the island would have most likely visited the shrines. In these cases, other criteria can assumed: ritual mastery may be associated with issues of gender or rank, such as being the head of a family or a group, the oldest individual, or simply being a man, especially at Illa Plana.

From the contexts analysed here, it appears most likely that ritual specialists did not rule and control the rituals by means of coercion or superiority. Rather, analysing rituals from the point of view of practices allows us to determine the agency and the empowerment of the rest of the participants. Although there are some differences as regards decoration and gestures, ritual activities and experiences would have been the same. The participants in rituals that were carried out in Illa Plana and Es Culleram had their own agency and ritual mastery, which allowed them not only to perform the same activities as the ritual specialists, but also to recognize whether what the specialists did corresponded to the worshipers’ expectations. Furthermore, it is significant to recall the bodily dimension of the achievement of ritual mastery: having special sensory experiences and movements, like dancing or walking inside the cave, are essential ritual features that everyone possesses, albeit in different degrees.

5 CONCLUSION

This paper has pointed out the need to analyse critically the concept of priests in relation to Phoenician and Punic shrines in rural and more isolated areas. The concept of priests not only derives from a modern understanding of their role, but also is more applicable to city temples than to rural shrines. Studying rituals from the perspective of practice and ritualisation may offer a new, more balanced panorama of the relation between the ritual specialists and the rest of the visitors. I have argued that ‘ritual mastery’ is a good methodological tool that allows us to understand how non-specialists possess ritual agency. Focusing on the cases of Illa Plana and Es Culleram, I have argued that ritual mastery is not only a feature shared by everyone, albeit in different degrees, but also that it is, basically, an embodied element through decoration, senses, and movements. Although there are differences between these people, they all have in common the same activities and the same experiences.


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PHOTO CREDITS

Figure 1: Representation of a Phoenician-Punic priest from the cemetery of Carthage. From Hours-Miedan 1951.

Figure 2: Map of Eivissa showing the location of the shrines discussed in this article. Author. Figure 3: Layout of Es Culleram. Adapted from Ramon 1985. Figure 4: Decorated clay figurines from Illa Plana. Adapted from Almagro Gorbea 1980. Figure 5: Decorated clay figurines from Illa Plana. Adapted from Almagro Gorbea 1980. Figure 6: Representation of the gesture of prayer in figurines from Illa Plana and on stelae

from Carthage. Adapted from Almagro Gorbea 1980; Hours-Miedan 1951

Where are the priests? Constructing ritual mastery in Punic shrines.

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