SANCTUARY, CITY AND CONGREGATION: ATHANA LINDIA AND HER SANCTUARY IN CONTEXT

Call for papers

The sanctuary of Athana Lindia on the acropolis of Lindos was for centuries one of the most important and interactive public and sacred spaces on the island of Rhodes. As a central node in social, political, sacred, and economic networks its importance stretched across the island state and its main land possessions and, indeed, across the ancient Mediterranean. Material remains make it abundantly clear that the sanctuary - or at least the site - remained an important social node from the Late Geometric to Late Antique period – and beyond. The life of the sanctuary has left its durable imprint not only in the architecture, but also through the hundreds of inscriptions, votive offerings and (other) small finds, spanning a period of roughly a millennium. Athana Lindia’s sanctuary offers innumerable opportunities for reconsidering religious and social interactions within the built environment of the sanctuary: the layout of the sanctuary and its position in the landscape provide important material to the current discussions of sacred space and the sacred experience, including cultic perception, rituals, and practicality; as well as and zoning, structuring, and curating of the sacred- but also social and political space.

Recent years have seen a renewed interest in Rhodes, exploring the island state’s rich epigraphical and archaeological material. These studies provide a new and improved context for the reading of Athana Lindia’s sanctuary and for asking new and relevant questions about the sanctuary, its social and political uses, the institutions that supported and drew support from it, as well as its relationship with the wider Rhodian and Mediterranean worlds.

The aim of this conference is to bring together an interdisciplinary group of researchers, archaeologists, epigraphers, historians and others, to contribute to a new history of and perspectives on the sanctuary of Athana Lindia. We are particularly interested in contributions that explore:

• the use and maintenance of a sacred space as a venue for cultic, civic, social, and cultural communication
• the institutional (civic as well as religious) framework that intersected in the sanctuary
• the experience of the sacred, of congregation, and of community
• the sanctuary as node in sacred, social, and economic networks
• the liminality, zoning, and curation of sacred space
• the sanctuary as a place of cultural reception and identity creation in antiquity
• the afterlife of the sanctuary as a continued presence, curated, reconstructed, and displayed

It is possible to apply for travel and/or accommodation grants.

Publication: It is the organizers’ intention of publishing a volume based on the papers delivered at the conference. We ask potential contributors to bear this ambition in mind when deciding to attend. The deadline for written contributions is 1 December 2026.

Organizers: Dr. Sanne Hoffmann, Director of the Danish Institute at Athens

Prof. Christian Ammitzbøll Thomsen, The National Museum of Denmark

Dr. Niels Bargfeldt, University of Copenhagen

Time: 7-8 May 2026

Venue: The Danish Institute at Athens.

Submission of abstracts

Titles and abstracts of up to 300 words for 20-minute talks should be submitted to: sanne.hoffmann@diathens.gr by 1 November 2025.

Thursday 7 May

9.30 – 10.00 Welcome: S. Hoffmann (The Danish Institute at Athens), C. Ammitzbøll Thomsen (National Museum of Denmark), N. Bargfeldt (University of Copenhagen)

10.00 – 11.00 Keynote speaker, V. Gabrielsen (University of Copenhagen): Looking outwards, acting inwards: the polis of Lindos and its sanctuary of Athana Lindia

11.00 – 11.30 Coffee break

Rituals and Gifts – chair: J. Wallensten

11.30 – 12.00 C. Brøns (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek), M.-L. Nosch (University of Copenhagen): Textiles and rituals in the Sanctuary of Athena Lindia

12.00 – 12.30 G. De Luca (Université de Lille): When foreigners enter the temple: religious performance and civic engagement in the sanctuary of Athena Lindia (4th-1st century BC)

12.30 – 13.00 A. Ognier (Université Bordeaux Montaigne): Imported Gifts and Exported Cult: Athana Lindia’s growing influence among the Network of Athena’s acropoleis Sanctuaries in the Aegean

13.00 – 14.30 Lunch

Dedications and Information – chair: N. Bargfeldt

14.30 – 15.00 S. Hoffmann (The Danish Institute at Athens): Communicating in Sacred Spaces – A diachronic study of the Athana Lindia Sanctuary

15.00 – 15.30 A.-S. Haake (Technische Universität Braunschweig): Communicating Royal Power: Dedications of Hellenistic Kings in the Lindian Chronicle

Institutions and Community – chair: V. Gabrielsen

15.30 – 16.00 A. Bresson (University of Chicago): The sanctuary of Athena Lindia and the Lindian Institutions

16.00 – 16.30 C. Ammitzbøll Thomsen (National Museum of Denmark): Mother, Daughter, Wife, Priestess. The Ascend of Elite Women to the Priesthood of Athana Lindia in Hellenistic Rhodes

16.30 – 17.00 Coffee break

Stones and Names – chair: A. Bresson

17.00 – 17.30 J. Pacheco (University of Salamanca): The Onomastic Landscape of the sanctuary of Athana Lindia

17.30 – 18.00 A. Vlamos (Université Rennes 2): Name and Fame. Strategies of Naming, Families and Space in the Sanctuary of Athana Lindia in the Hellenistic and Roman periods

18.00 – 18.30 C. M. Keesling (Georgetown University): The Epigraphic Afterlives of Greek Sculptors on Rhodes

18.30 – 19.00 Discussion

Friday 8 May

9.30 – 10.30 Keynote speaker, J. Wallensten (The Swedish Institute at Athens): Lindian Athena and Zeus: A father-daughter relationship in the mirror of dedicatory language

Monuments and Spaces I– chair: C.M. Keesling

10.30 – 11.00 F. Zervaki (Ephorate of Antiquities of the Dodecanese): New Evidence about the Cemeteries of Lindos and the Development of the City from Its Foundation to the Hellenistic Period

11.00 – 11.30 V. Machaira (Academy of Athens): Sculptures Uncovered in the Sanctuary of Athena Lindia: An Attempt to Localize Their Initial Setting

11.30 – 12.00 M. Filimonos (22nd Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities): Warship Prows Made of Lartian Stone from Lindos and the Rhodian State Territory

12.00 – 13.30 Lunch

Monuments and Spaces II –chair: M. Filimonos

13.30 – 14.00 E. Tsakanika (Ephorate of Antiquities of the Dodecanese): The Exedra of Pamphilidas and the Other Exedras of the Acropolis of Lindos

14.00 – 14.30 A. Markou, M. Pikoula, A. Giannikouri (Ephorate of Antiquities of the Dodecanese): The sanctuary of Athana Lindia: The Stoa of Psithyrus

14.30 – 15.00 N. Bargfeldt (University of Copenhagen): Reimagining Athana's House: Virtual Reconstruction of a Sanctuary

15.00 – 15.30 Coffee break

Afterlives – chair: C.A. Thomsen

15.30 – 16.00 N. Salmon, E. Maheras (Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe): By Land and Sea: Overlooked Interactions with Lindos during Late Ottoman Times

16.00 – 16.30 V. Eleftheriou (Hellenic Ministry of Culture): Researching the archival material – the correspondence that preceded the interventions at the monuments of Lindos during the interwar period

16.30 – 17.00 M. Kylindreas (Emory University): Recasting the Classical Landscape under Fascism: The Late 1930s Italian Interventions in the Sanctuary of Athena Lindia on Rhodes

17.00 – 17.30 Coffee break

17.30 – 18.00 Discussion and wrap-up by N. Bargfeldt.