The aesthetics of power occupies a central space in our perceptions of Classical culture. Yet, in the face of the consequential processes of marginalization and oppression, people often developed alternative vocabularies, expressing identity, resistance and agency in language, actions and material culture.

Strangely shaped stones…

Take, for instance, a number of unusual stones that came to light during excavations carried out by the University of Alberta and the Greek Archaeological Service at the Kastro of Kallithea, a city dating to the 4th-2nd century BCE in Achaia Phthiotis, a region on the outskirts of the major fertile plains of Thessaly, Greece. What are they and what do they tell us?

What are they?

The stones occur in spaces with a religious significance, in a single region and within a small window of time. Inscriptions indicate that they were dedicated to deities. Ancient Thessalians offered all kinds of cakes and breads to the gods. Can they be interpreted as representations of common gifts to the gods: sacrificial tables with food offerings?

Humble offerings monumentalized

In the early 2nd century BCE, Achaia Phthiotis became incorporated in large unified territory; the Thessalian League. The league also unified the religious calendar and chose two sanctuaries elsewhere that served as main spaces of veneration where more lavish offerings, such as animal sacrifices, were the custom.

The inhabitants of Achaia Phthiotis were reluctant in conforming to the new religious rules. Rather than providing the gods with gifts of high intrinsic value in temples far away, they monumentalized in stone their tables with breads and cakes, and set them up in their own houses and sanctuaries during their own festivals.

Do the stones assert a sense of belonging and loyalty to a once independent region with its own religious habits? Does the humble sacrifice in the form of bread or cakes, a staple food that embodies so much investment of time, effort and care, represent the traditional and true gift to—and from—the gods?