he Ancient Greek world didn't have rules that were applied in every shrines and for every rituals that were performed inside. The norms depended on the places, the deities, and sometimes the period of the year. Among the documentation...
morehe Ancient Greek world didn't have rules that were applied in every shrines and for every rituals that were performed inside. The norms depended on the places, the deities, and sometimes the period of the year. Among the documentation which provides us with information on the way the religious festivals were performed and the behaviour expected on the part of the worshippers entering the sanctuaries, we find a rich series of inscriptions, commonly called " sacred laws ". Until recently, these epigraphical datas have been studied from the point of view of the authorities which emitted the rules. The paper aims at shifting the perspective by studying the effects that such ritual prescriptions had upon the members of the community, in order to see to what extend the ritual norms were intented to act upon the body and the sensory experience of the worshippers. First, the paper sheds light upon the nature of the most common prohibitions to be found in the inscriptions. Then it focusses on the sensory effects produced by some rules connected to Demeter in the Peloponnesian, stating that these rules are meaningful regarding the relation established between the goddess and her worshippers.
