Divine Anthropomorphism in Ancient Cultures
University of Edinburgh, 3-5 June 2026
The conference ‘Divine Anthropomorphism in Ancient Cultures’ will take place at the University of Edinburgh on 3-5 June 2026. The conference is in person only (no online attendance). If you would like to register to attend, please do so by 1 June, using this registration form. Registration is free, but there is a charge for lunch.
We are grateful for funding provided by the British Academy, the Classical Association, and the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh.
Any enquiries should be directed to the organisers, Theodore Hill (theodore.hill@ed.ac.uk) and Alexandre Johnston (alexandre.johnston@classics.ox.ac.uk).
Programme:
Wednesday 3 June
Meadows Lecture Theatre, Old Medical School
9.30 – Welcome and introduction
9.45 – Keynote: Armin W. Geertz (Aarhus)
10.45 – Break
11.15 – Pål Steiner (Bergen): Anthropomorphism as Ritual Technology: Divine Roles and Ritual Agency in the Pyramid Texts
11.55 – Louisa Ben Hamida (Montpellier 3 / CFEETK): The God Amun or the Pharaoh? Playing on Ambiguity between a Divinity and the King in Ancient Egypt
12.35 – Yike Xu (Pisa): The Unreachable Divine Light: A Case Study of the God Aten During the Amarna Period
13.15 – Lunch
14.15 – Elena Limongelli (Oxford): The Psychological Life of Deities in Babylonian Literature
14.55 – Anastasia Tchaplyghine (British Museum): “I give health to humankind… [my husband] makes humankind live in abundance”: Gula and Ninurta’s Exceptional Anthropomorphism in an Era of Emblems
15.35 – Joseph Barber (Würzburg): Understanding and Managing Divine Emotion in Hittite Oracles
16.15 – Break
Teviot Lecture Theatre, Old Medical School
17.00 – Keynote: Selena Wisnom (Leicester)
Thursday 4 June
Maclaren Stuart Room, Old College
9.30 – Momoko Howell (Oxford): “Bound in Distressful Bonds”: Wounding and Binding the Gods in Early Greek Hexameter Poetry
10.10 – Alex MacFarlane (Birmingham): “But I know your language as well as ours”: Gods’ Voices and Language in Ancient Greece
10.50 – Peter Olive (Oxford): Sunt superis sua iura: Problematizing Divine Endogamy
11.30 – Break
12.00 – Anthony Ellis (Bern): Divine Spouses, Tyrants, and Rivals: Perspectives from Ancient Hebrew, Greek, Jewish and Christian Literature
12.40 – Max Leventhal (Edinburgh): God the Photon? Divine Corporeality and Luminosity in Jewish Greek Texts
13.20 – Lunch
14.20 – Dobrinka Chiekova (The College of New Jersey): Cultural Encounters: The Greek Forms of Local Goddesses on the Western Coast of the Ancient Black Sea
15.00 – Szilvia Lakatos (Pécs): The Limits of Anthropomorphism: Etruscan Underworld Demons and Iconographic Variability
15.40 – Pietro Scudieri (Málaga): Divine Anthropomorphism and Political Memory in Republican Rome
16.20 – Break
Meadows Lecture Theatre, Old Medical School
17.00 – Keynote: Bernardo Ballesteros Petrella (Vienna)
Friday 5 June
Meadows Lecture Theatre, Old Medical School
9.30 – Keynote: Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge (Collège de France)
10.30 – Break
11.00 – Henry Spelman (Cambridge): The Comic Theology of Sacrifice
11.40 – John Wilkins (Exeter): Drinking with the Gods
12.20 – Felix Budelmann (Groningen): Divine Anthropomorphism and Its Limits at the Greek Theoxeny
13.00 – Lunch
14.00 – Ginevra Benedetti (Siena): Non-Human Forms: Divine Presence in Roman Religious Practice
14.40 – Adrien Coignoux (AnHiMA, Paris): Birthdays for Immortals? The Roman Temple as a Primary Locus of Divine Anthropomorphism
15.20 – Break
15.50 – Round table
Note: this is not a Classical Association event – please contact the organisers directly with any enquiries.