Tracing Kybele’s Cult(ure) -A Multimodal Study on the Mother of Gods’ Worship in Ptolemaic Egypt-
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2025-03-31
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en
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This thesis focuses on a set of archaeological artefacts and literary sources from Hellenistic to early Roman Egypt which are linked to the Phrygian goddess Kybele and her cult. Kybele, a mother goddess known under many names, developed a complex iconography and was venerated across a vast temporal and geographical scope. While her influence in Ptolemaic Egyptian culture and religious practices is often considered minimal, this study reassesses this view by examining what these artefacts, when analysed collectively, reveal about the introduction and dissemination of Kybele’s cult in Ptolemaic Egypt. A holistic, bottom-up approach is applied, integrating four key concepts from the theories of Lived Ancient Religion (LAR) -‘Mediality’, ‘Agency’, ‘Situational Meaning’ and ‘Appropriation’- along with Multimodality to incorporate both textual and non-textual sources into the analysis. The artefacts and texts are compared to other Mediterranean artefacts associated with Kybele, focusing on iconography, function and co-references to other deities. Additionally, the archaeological find contexts are examined alongside socio-historical contexts to determine how these objects were created, owned and used. This study suggests that, while Kybele’s cult may have first reached Egypt via the Greek settlement Naukratis before or during the Achaemenid period, its more widespread introduction into the Nile Delta and possibly beyond (reaching as far as the eastern desert), can only be supported by Ptolemaic-era evidence. This aligns with the theory that Greeks settlers imported cultic practices following Alexander the Great’s conquests. The presence of the toponym Ἄγδιστις in Egypt –a name for Kybele attested in the Athenian Piraeus and Hellenistic Anatolia- may indicate the cultural and religious background of the Greek worshippers who settled in Egypt. The Egyptian artefacts suggest that Kybele’s cultic was practices in both public and private contexts. Evidence of Ptolemaic patronage in dedicatory inscriptions raises the possibility of an official religious status, while figurines depicting Kybele alongside Isis indicate that her worship at times merged with and Egyptian traditions. Even though a priest of Kybele is documented in the Fayyūm, the presence of the Γάλλοι (the goddess’s eunuch priests) in Egypt remains uncertain. Meanwhile, familiarity with Attis, Kybele’s consort, is attested through literary works from Alexandria, which echo themes found in a bronze figurine, hinting at his potential role in ritual practices. In spite of the varied expressions of Kybele’s worship in Egypt, gaps in archaeological metadata and objects of unknown provenance complicate efforts to fully trace the development of her cult over time. Nevertheless, this study challenges established assumptions about Kybele’s limited presence and influence in Ptolemaic Egypt, offering new perspectives on her role in its religious landscape.
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