Acts of Remembering in the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace

This lecture will take place in person at ISAW (15 East 84th Street).

Registration is required at THIS LINK.

The Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace was the home of a famous mystery cult of the ancient Greek world, and of the famous Victory statue. Even at its height (3rd-2nd centuries BCE), the cult referenced Archaic and Classical period (7th-5th century BCE) origins in ways both visible and invisible. The talk reconsiders the archaeological evidence of the central valley of the Sanctuary of the Great Gods of Samothrace. The talk analyzes ash, bone, and votive collections which accumulated in the 7th - 6th century BCE, and then were manipulated and dispersed in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. The talk argues that buried collection of debris and artifacts reflect meaningful and strategic engagement with the material memory of more ancient ritual activities. The talk argues this “sacred trash” was actually socially significant, referencing the earliest ritual activity even after centuries, and was embedded in place to maintain social memory for the worshiping community of the Samothrace.

Amanda Cates Ball, Visiting Assistant Professor at NYU ISAW, is a Mediterranean archaeologist, whose research focuses on sacred landscapes and material evidence of cultural interaction between Greeks and Thracians in the northeast Aegean. She has been a member of American Excavations Samothrace since 2018, and has served as trench supervisor, survey team supervisor, and field supervisor. Amanda is actively involved in the planning of future seasons and publications of the project. She received her PhD in Classics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2025. Amanda has received several prestigious fellowships to support her research, such as the Olivia James Traveling Fellowship from the Archaeological Institute of America, the Marilyn Yarbrough Dissertation/Teaching Fellowship at Kenyon College, and the Homer A. and Dorothy B. Thompson Advanced Fellowship at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. She is currently at work on a book project entitled “Becoming Sacred: How Sacred Trash Made Ancient Greek Sanctuaries.”

The lecture will be followed by a reception.

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