Gli Dei senza nome. Sincretismi, ritualita e iconografia dei Cabiri e dei Grandi Dei tra Grecia e Asia Minore

Ancient written sources on the Cult of the Cabiri are as numerous as they are contradictory, so that the archaeological evidence, epigraphics, coins, vase paintings, and sculpture were analysed, too. The core of this study is a catalogue of 169 sanctuaries in an arrangement by geographical region. Major cult sites such as Samothrace, Lemnos, Thebes, Troy, Andania, and Delos were subdivided further. The high age of the Cabiric cult can be inferred from both Herodotus and 7th-century finds. There is evidence for circular and rectangular buildings for symposia and sacrifices, but also assembly houses and theatres. The wide spatial and chronological distribution of the Cabiric religion results in almost as many rituals as there are sanctuaries. The cult began in Asia Minor and the Near East, seized the entire Mediterranean, and took over the importance of the Panhellenic sanctuaries since Alexander the Great. From the 4th century onwards the term Cabiri was replaced by “Great Gods” of a varying composition. Mixed with both were the Dioskouri, the Great God in the Black Sea region, and the Curetes and Corybantes from Crete. The cult ended in the 3rd/4th century A.D.