The Ritual Performance of Gift Exchange in Archaic Greece

Summary

Gift exchange is most often discussed as an economic transaction. Whether goods are exchanged for social, political or cultural capital, the model for examining the practice is based on a commodity framework. However, gift exchange is also a performance, often with prescribed behaviors based on the culture and the individuals participating in the exchange. This behavior clearly falls within the realm of ritual as much as that of trade or economics. In this paper, I discuss gift exchange as a performed ritual both within and across cultural groups. Furthermore, while gift exchange is a behavior between individuals, it often has larger ramifications for the communities these individuals inhabit. For example, gift exchange between political leaders may influence the lives of everyone within their society. This link between social organization and gift exchange is an important aspect of its power as a ritual behavior. In particular, I will discuss how ancient Greek elites used gift exchange as an important unifying ritual in order to connect disparate communities in order to maintain cooperative relationships.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20869