Collection of Greek Ritual Norms

Available

 * http://cgrn.ulg.ac.be/

Editors

 * Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge
 * Jan-Mathieu Carbon
 * Saskia Peels-Matthey

Description
The Collection of Greek Ritual Norms project issues from the reassessment of a category of inscriptions which have come to fore in the study of ancient Greek religion. These are the texts known as leges sacrae or “sacred laws”, collected by F.Sokolowski in the 1950s and 60s (LSAM, LSS, LSCG), and more recently by E. Lupu in 2005 (NGSL).

The collection can be searched by string or by lemma, since most wordforms have been lemmatized (only some grammatical words are not lemmatized). It can also be browsed by metadata, e.g. by date, location, etc. The inscriptions can be downloaded as XML EpiDoc files.

The validity and the utility of this epigraphical category has recently been questioned (cf. especially Parker 2004 and see also Harris 2015). Articles published as part of the preliminary investigations of the CGRN project have broadened this discussion. Please consult the following: "Beyond Greek 'Sacred Laws' " and "Codifying ‘Sacred Laws' ". In the collection, instead of remaining under the lens of “sacred laws”, a choice has been made to focus on the normative character of inscriptions relating to ancient Greek rituals, and in particular on the two large subjects of sacrifice and purification.

The result of this reappraisal is an original Digital Humanities resource, funded by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – FNRS (Belgium). The Collection of Greek Ritual Norms (CGRN) is a website which conforms to the general guidelines of TEI Epidoc XML. Its primary goal is to gather epigraphical material for the study of Greek rituals and to make these sources widely available, in a clear and accessible form, with translations in English and in French.

Note: As of 24 November 2023, the Collection of Greek Ritual Norms includes 250 edited, commented and translated inscriptions which are fully accessible at the above address.