Anchoring in the Temple

Seafarers are subject to a distinctive set of circumstances that differentiate their lived experiences from those of populations living and working ashore. In the ancient Mediterranean, there is evidence that the particular hazards of life at sea led to the development of distinctive ritual practices and cultural narratives. Textual sources and the material evidence of stone anchors in port sanctuaries have been used by scholars to trace such practices and to propose the existence of transcultural rituals for the eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age. Such studies provide a solid foundation for further research, but questions remain about the extent to which discursive and material practices were interwoven and how these rituals were situationally embedded and related to other practices across local and transregional non-seafaring milieus. The present study analyses this assemblage of maritime ritual practices as a socio-material network comprised of people, things, and narratives, using New Practice Theory. The strong influence of New Materialism on New Practice Theory allows us to integrate the discursive written and visual sources with the bodily practices identifiable in the archaeological record in a more-than-human network.