This experimental description of a research problem has been developed
at the Philologisches Seminar, University Tuebingen.
We try to research on the correlation between ritual song and ritual action . At the same time we wish to learn about the possibilities offered to scientific communication in the field of Classics and Humanities by electronic media: How are scientific problems and informations to be organized and represented in order to enable a discussion?
The main thesis:
- there is a connection between
ritual song
and
ritual action
- the transformation of ritual into oracle and song takes place in a defined
and predictable way.
Our starting point are the
Secular Games
held in Rome in the
year 17 BC. They appear in different media: protocol
(acta saecularia)
Sibylline oracle (in Greek), and song - Horace's carmen saeculare. In each
medium the object - the secular games - appears sligthly different. The
task is:
a) reconstruction of the ritual (3 days, 3 nights);
b) to describe the relation of rites (symbolic actions) and word (preces);
c) to define the exact position of Horace's carmen at the end of the ritual
and to explain the meaning of this position.
We invite everybody to comment and critizise. For further instruction and illustration of the possible relations between word and action we hope especially for examples derived from other cultures.
Please contact via e-mail hubert.cancik@uni-tuebingen.de