Samothrace

by

Sandra Blakely

• LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0418

Introduction

A mountainous island twenty-nine nautical miles south of the Thracian shore, Samothrace exemplifies the dynamic geomorphism of the northern Aegean and long-standing patterns of cultural exchange across ethnic divides. Greek colonists, arriving in the sixth century BCE, encountered Thracian cultural groups with deep roots in the island and the regional networks of exchange; existing cult sites provided loci for interaction and shared celebration of local gods. The Greek settlers left behind a city wall whose scale attests significant economic success and the mutually beneficial nature of Greco-Thracian interactions. Samothrace is best known for the mystery cult that bore the island’s name. Attested from the sixth century BCE through the fourth century CE, the island’s initiations and festivals drew individuals from East Greece and the Black Sea, the Aegean islands, and Rome. Competition in the giving of gifts to the gods transformed the sanctuary into a locus of extraordinary architectural refinement and innovation. The rites were as secret as the sanctuary was elaborate: no texts provide for Samothrace an analogy to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter for Eleusis. The very names of the gods were alternatively hidden under the euphemistic title “Great Gods,” or a matter of endless invention, so that dozens of possibilities emerge over some thousand years of ancient literature. The sanctuary became a theater for architectural innovation, refinement, and competitive dedication of votives, funded by Hellenistic powers from Alexandria and Asia Minor as well as the Roman patrons who knew the rites as early as the late third century BCE. Architectural and geospatial studies have reconstructed these monuments, positioning the buildings in the lived experience of ritual topography as well as the prosopographies of patrons and initiates and Hellenistic and Roman political and cultural histories. The rites were distinctive in their promise to initiate safety in travel at sea; extensive epigraphic records both on and off the island open a view of the spaces in which these promises would be realized, and the rites’ reputation was created.

General Overviews

The history of human occupation on Samothrace extends from the Neolithic through the Byzantine period, the Turkish occupation, and the modern era. Matsas and Bakirtzis 2001 and Lehmann 1998 offer brief introductions; Matsas 2010 provides a more extensive exploration of the island’s history, making use of models drawn from island archaeologies. Ehrhardt 1985 and Bremmer 2014 focus on the mysteries, taking up the notoriously elusive identity of the gods of the rites, sometimes known as Kabeiroi, as well as the integration of literary and archaeological evidence. Cole 1984 pairs an introduction to the island’s history and its mysteries with an epigraphically enabled account of the rites and their reputation beyond the island; Dimitrova 2008 is the most comprehensive collection of the island’s records of theoria and proxenia, along with an analysis of their functions in Samothracian history. The American Excavations at Samothrace website presents ongoing research in the sanctuary, an insight into the emerging horizons for integrating archaeologies of ritual with new technologies.

• American Excavations at Samothrace.

  This website offers continual updates on ongoing excavations, digital reconstructions of the sanctuary’s buildings, an interactive site plan, and overviews of current research foci, including statistical analyses, agent-based modeling, 3D walkthroughs, geology, and geomorphology, as well as scholarly bibliography with an emphasis on architectural and archaeological publications. The site is maintained by Emory University.

• Bremmer, Jan. 2014. Initiation into the mysteries of the ancient world. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter.

  DOI: 10.1515/9783110299557

  Chapter 2 (pp. 21–53) opens by comparing the Samothracian and Eleusinian rites—ancient evidence, availability of initiation, ritual procedures, and experiences within different buildings of the Samothracian sanctuary. Evidence for Kabeiroi as the gods of Samothrace’s mysteries is compared to the evidence for their celebrations in mysteries at Imbros, Lemnos, and Thebes and in Asia Minor. Distinctions are observed between Kabeiroi and Korybantes, who are also identified as Samothracian gods.

• Cole, Susan Guettel. 1984. Theoi Megaloi: The cult of the Great Gods at Samothrace. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.

  DOI: 10.1163/9789004296473

  Introductory chapters present the island, the sanctuary’s evolution from first activity through the Hellenistic period, and the use of the terms myesis and epopteia. A chapter on the epigraphic evidence for initiation and theoria is followed by an account of the Samothracian gods and their celebrations at other sites: Appendix I provides full texts for inscriptions found off the island. The final chapter surveys Roman engagement with the island’s mysteries.

• Dimitrova, Nora M. 2008. Theoroi and initiates in Samothrace: The epigraphical evidence. Hesperia Supplement 37. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

  An edition of all inscriptions relating to Samothracian theoroi, mystai, and epoptai, updating previously published materials, adding new documents from the Archaeological Museum of Samothrace, and incorporating eight additional inscriptions from other poleis for a total of 179 inscriptions. Adds some 100 new names to previous totals, changes the map of Samothracian affiliates, and replaces models of a Festival of the Mysteries with a Dionysia as the key Samothracian festival.

• Ehrhardt, Hartmut. 1985. Samothrake: Heiligtümer in ihrer Landschaft und Geschichte als Zeugen antiken Geisteslebens. Stuttgart: Urachhaus.

  A detailed account of the island’s topographies and history from the pre-Greek period through the 20th-century history of the island and the onset of archaeological research. An analysis of the mystery cult explores the evidence for the identity of its gods as Kabeiroi, the proposal of a sacred language used in the rites, and considers individual sanctuary buildings in terms of potential ritual action.

• Lehmann, Karl. 1998. Samothrace: A guide to the excavations and museum. 6th ed. Thessaloniki, Greece: Institute of Fine Arts, New York Univ.

  James R. McCredie, director of the Samothracian excavations from 1935 to 2018, completed this most recent revision of the archaeological guide to the site, first written by Karl Lehmann in 1954. Two initial chapters on the island, its history, and the religion of the Great Gods are followed by chapters that guide the visitor through the sanctuary’s remains and the collections of the on-site museum.

• Lewis, Naphtali. 1959. Samothrace: The ancient literary sources. New York: Pantheon Books.

  Collects all ancient literary evidence for Samothrace and its mysteries, providing original Greek and Latin texts as well as English translations: 241 citations total. Organization is by subject matter—e.g., physical and economic geography, legends and histories, the religion of the sanctuary, the fame and influence of the cult in the ancient world, and characteristics of the cult. Appendices include a chronological accounting of sources as well as proper names.

• Matsas, Dimitris. 2010. Problems in island archaeology: Towards an archaeology of religion on Samothrace. In Samothracian connections: Essays in honor of James R. McCredie. Edited by Bonna D. Wescoat and Olga Palagia, 33–49. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

  Three case studies index a shift from connectivity to insularity over the longue duree of Samothrace’s history. These are Minoan clay mini-documents at Mikro Vouni, from the eighteenth century BCE; the advent of monumental architecture at the sanctuary of the Great Gods, from the fourth through third centuries BCE; and the acquisition of territories spread out over much of the island by the Athonite convent of Ivrion in the eighteenth century CE.

• Matsas, Dimitris, and Argiris Bakirtzis. 2001. Samothrace: A short cultural guide. 2d ed. Athens: Municipality of Samothrace.

  Concise, well-illustrated introduction to the ethnography, history, natural resources, and archaeological research of Samothrace, including the ancient town and the north and south coasts, with consideration of villages, workshops, Byzantine churches, monasteries, fortifications, and the prehistoric remains at Mikró Vouní and Mandal Panagia.