A. Bernabé

Appendix II. Iconographical Notes On The Orphic Tablets. Selection Of Illustrations And Commentaries By Ricardo Olmos. Drawings by Sara Olmos

This chapter presents approximations to the religious world of the Orphic tablets from the viewpoint of iconography. Each of the images collected here establishes a dialogue, sometimes necessarily conjectural and imprecise, with the contents of the texts. The images guide the reader along multiple paths towards the environment of Orphism. Some of them are mere thematic allusions. In other cases, we can see that the correspondence between world and figuration is more precise and direct. The text aims at formulating a mere suggestion of how word and image are related and how they interact.Keywords:clay images; Dionysiac images; Egyptian images; funerary images; iconographical notes; Orphic tablets; sacred words

Chapter Two. A Ritual For The Dead: The Tablets From Pelinna (L 7AB)

The two tablets from Pelinna (L 7a and 7b) were found in Thessaly in 1985, on the site of ancient Pelinna or Pelinnaion. They were placed on the breast of a dead female, in a tomb. The myth of the Orphic Dionysus can be reconstructed from the fragments of the Orphic theogonies. Milk is an extremely important element in the ritual of Dionysus: when the Bacchants struck the rocks and earth, springs of wine and milk leapt forth, and the furrows dripped honey, all of which are fundamental ingredients in funerary libations. The comparison with other literary and epigraphical evidence allows us to affirm that the followers of the Orphic doctrines carried out initiatory rites connected with the Dionysiac environment, whose goal was to achieve a better fate after the death of the body.Keywords:Dionysiac environment; milk; Orphic doctrines; Pelinna (L 7ab); tablets; wine

Chapter Seven. Passwords To Accede To The Meadow Of The Blessed And A Prayer To Persephone: The Tablets From Pherai (L 13 And 13a)

The tablets from Pherai present with two completely different models. L 13 is written in prose, and apparently concerns a shorter password, which gives direct access to the meadow of the blessed. A considerable problem is to whom the soul is speaking, since the tablet does not say. One possibility might be that it is addressing the first guardians, with a change in the formula. Another, that the soul is speaking to some second guardians, who, in the last stage, would give access to the meadow. However, it seems to us more likely that the soul is speaking to Persephone herself. L 13a contains a prayer. The mystes addresses an unknown divinity, but the parallels of the other gold tablets suggest strongly that she is Persephone.Keywords:passwords; Persephone; Pherai; prayer; sacred meadows; tablets