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Toward an Archaeology of Secrecy: Power, Paradox, and the Great Gods of Samothrace

Abstract

The mystery cult of the Great Gods of Samothrace offers productive material for theory building with respect to the archaeology of secrecy in ritual contexts. The social practice of secrecy builds political power and relies on communicative strategies that simultaneously conceal and reveal, employing culturally specific codes involving abstraction, ambiguity, metaphor, and allusion. Samothrace increased its secrecy as it grew in prestige: archaeological materialization of this secrecy includes euphemistic inscriptions and magnetized iron rings used as tokens of initiation. The rings use myth, philosophy, and ritual practice to communicate the initiate's status while emphasizing the rites' resistance to disclosure. [secrecy, Greece, initiation, iron, magnetism]

Archaeology of the Waiat mysteries on Woeydhul Island in Western Torres Strait

“…Such scenarios are strongly attested by Graeco-Roman mystery cults (e.g. Martens 2004; Blakely 2012). Rarely mentioned in contemporaneous written accounts, archaeological research provides remarkable levels of detail.…”

Fighting silence covert warfare and the uphill battle against the unsaid

“…A vibrant field of scholarship has developed on the question of secrecy, ranging from the role of secrecy in media representations of armed drone attacks (Kearns, 2016), to the secret detention and torture programme (Raphael et al, 2016), to secrecy in counterterrorism and finance tracking (Goede and de Wesseling, 2017). Scholars have analysed the performative role of secrecy, particularly regarding the open secret, which is linked to ‘the public demonstration that one will not reveal’ (Blakely, 2012: 49; Masco, 2010).…”

This Is a Secret: Learning From Children’s Engagement With Surveillance and Secrecy

“…Not only making known and knowing, but also secrecy regulates veillance, information flows, and actively shapes interaction. Here, secrecy has a tendency to be discussed as a power-tool for domination and exclusion (e.g., Blakely, 2012; Fenster, 1999). Carol Warren and Barbara Laslett (1977) try to dissociate the secret from elitist tools, but they still analyze secrecy as the morally questionable refuge for those without access to privacy: “Privacy is consensual where secrecy is not” (Warren & Laslett, 1977, p. 43).…”