Perspectives on Greek history through the lens of a single place, a settlement or sanctuary site, have somewhat fallen out of fashion. The broad currents of scholarship call for connected approaches: to people, places, and the practices that shaped the hybrid culture of ancient Greece, and that of any other culture, for that matter. At the same time, there is a staggering amount of new historical data that is highly local in nature: archaeological material from excavations as numerous and diverse in nature and scope as never before; new bodies of scientific evidence, including environmental and bioarchaeological datasets; and the efflorescence of new epigraphic discoveries. These materials lend unprecedented depth to the literary tradition and the grand narratives it inspires. They also make perspectives ‘from within’ or ‘from below’ irresistible, adumbrating a local horizon buzzing with life, rich in experience, nuanced, multicoded, often dissonant – and, few would object, of prime importance to the broad current of connected cultural processes.
These observations marked the starting point for an international conference entitled “Beyond Mysteries. The Hybrid History of Ancient Eleusis”, held at the University of Münster from September 30 to October 1, 2021. The gathering targeted Eleusis as a space inherently ‘in-between’, both physically and metaphorically. It invited approaches alert to the local as a sphere where different vectors of Greek culture touch, in complementary and conflictual ways: for instance, the amalgamation of diverse natural environments and different political entities; of boundedness in place and entanglement with others afar; of imaginaries of isolation and belonging; and material and immaterial expressions in culture that were in themselves fused by local, regional, and universal practices. In this vein of inquiry, the conference also turned to the Mysteries of Eleusis – how could it not? –, to place them in the context of religious communications in the Saronic region and beyond, on land and at sea, across time. In sum, the overarching goal of the Münster meeting was to assemble the varied, but often isolated strands of Eleusinian scholarship and put them into fruitful exchanges with one another, so as to account for the rich diversity and vibrant dynamic in a place vital to ancient Greek culture.
The papers printed in this volume were solicited from a larger crop of presentations. We thank the series editors of Religions in the Graeco-Roman World and the publisher for stimulating conversations throughout the acquisition and peer review processes. The conference itself was run under the aegis of and funded by the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” at the University of Münster, subproject B3-40 ‘Localism and Religion in ancient Greece’. Marian Helm and Christoph Michels had helped with the organization of the event, along with Eylihan Ayhan, Johanna Brunsing, and Lukas Duisen. The latter also assisted the preparation of the manuscript for the press, for which we are genuinely grateful. Our most cordial thanks go, however, to our contributors who, at a time of great apprehension and anxiety, joined in the endeavor to participate in the event. To many of us, the occasion was the first larger academic event after the 2020 demise. Few will forget the precarious sense of excitement in the lofty conference hall of the Münster Stadthotel, and the energy it lent to our conversations on site.