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PORTRAIT of a PRIESTESS by Joan Breton Connelly

Connelly, Joan Breton. Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007. "Priestesses serving the cult were forbidden to wear fancy dress, anything of the color purple, gold ornaments, or face powder . . . Sanctuary laws thus served to level distinctions among worshippers and to promote an atmosphere of communality in which devotion to the deity came first" (90). "White has long been associated with a state of purity and was the required color for priestly dress at many sanctuaries. It was worn by all incubants and visitors at healing sanctuaries of Asklepios, such as at Pergamon. Indeed, Asklepios was understood to be a divinity who himself always dressed in white. On Delos, those who entered the sanctuary of Zeus Kynthios and Athena Kynthia were required to be 'pure of hand and soul' and to dress in white garments. All persons entering an unnamed sanctuary at Priene were required to wear wh

"Body Ritual among the Nacirema" by Horace Miner

This article was a favorite of mine from the anthology Crossing Cultures that we used in teaching English Composition to International Students at the University of Arizona. "Body Ritual among the Nacirema," American Anthropologist 58 (1956): 503-507.