The exploratory focus of Research Group C-III was on acts and, more precisely on rituals. The fundamental research question was how sacred landscapes and spaces are distinguished through ritual action and ritual practices, especially through processions, from the past to the present. Practices and actions could be occasioned by a particular space or be integrated into a space and thereby contribute to the formation, modification, or reproduction of space. The group seeked to examine the interdependence of space and ritual acts. In order to contribute to ritual theory, the group aimed to identify sacred places, reconstruct processions, for instance to sanctuaries, explore the social and economic organization of processions, examine the relationship between ritual and mundane practices, and finally to reconstruct larger sacred landscapes.
Dissertations
- Die Rolle der Musik in antiken griechischen Prozessionen
- Sites of Bronze Age Deposition in Central Europe
- The Pythaïs. A study of the procession from Athens to Delphi.
- The use of ceramic vessels in commensal contexts of the Ubaid and Uruk periods in southern Mesopotamia and southwest Iran.
- Verticality in procession and ritual. The Fiesta de Santiago in the South-Central Andes
Research Projects
- Commensality and Shared Space in the Context of Early State and Urban Development in Mesopotamia and Southwest Iran
- Die Erschließung von Räumen durch Prozessionen in der Antike
- Heilige Berge – Rituelle Topographien
- Hort und Raum
- Musikarchäologie der Räume – Vergangene Klangwelten im kulturgeschichtlichen Kontext