The mysteries of the goddess of Marmarini

This paper re-visits in detail the problems raised by the text from Marmarini published in Kernos 2015. We accept J.M. Carbon’s calendrical location (Kernos 2016) of the festivals mentioned in it (Nisanaia, Eloulaia) that derive from month names of the standard Mesopotamian calendar. We discuss: the possible contents of the lost sections; the gods mentioned (we dissociate the patron goddess of the sanctuary from Artemis Phylake); the physical form of the sanctuary (indeterminable in detail); possible Near Eastern ritual influences; the initiations/mysteries of the text in relation to other Hellenistic mysteries; sacrificial terms and procedures, with particular attention to the complex sacrificial vocabulary of the text, sacrifice by ‘the Greek rite’, and the apparent recycling of sacrificial meat within the sanctuary; purity, purifications and abstentions; the general character of the text, which we tentatively suggest may have been issued by a city which had incorporated an imported cult