Lectures in ancient Greek religion in memory of Martin P. Nilsson
Martin Persson Nilsson (1874–1967) was a Swedish philologist, and a scholar of the Greek and Roman religious systems. In his prolific studies, he combined the literary evidence with the archaeological evidence, linking historic and prehistoric evidence for the evolution of the Greek mythological cycles. In 1909 he was appointed the first Professor of Ancient Greek, Classical Archaeology and Ancient History at Lund University.
Nilsson is perhaps the most influential Swedish classicist of all times. His best-known work in German is Geschichte der griechischen Religion in the Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft. He had previously published it under the title Den grekiska religionens historia (1922). His best-known work in English is Minoan-Mycenaean religion, and its survival in Greek religion.
Lectures in ancient Greek religion in memory of Martin P. Nilsson are organized biannually at the Swedish Institute.
2023 Renaud Gagné, ‘How to write a festival? The ritual archive of ancient Greek religion’
2021 Nicole Belayche, ‘“On the giant’s shoulders”: The Eleusinian Mysteries in the Roman period. Between historiography, literary traditions and epigraphy’
2018 Angelos Chaniotis, ‘The sound of ancient religion’
2017 A celebration of the work of Martin P. Nilsson. A one-day international symposium: Jon Mikalson, ‘Martin P. Nilsson and the Geschichte, vol. 1’; Eftychia Stavrianopoulou, ‘Hellenistic religion(s): Revisiting Martin P. Nilsson’s Geschichte der griechischen Religion II: Die hellenistische und römische Zeit’; Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge, ‘To be ‘popular’ or not to be ... Nilsson’s Greek folk religion and afterwards’; Matthew Haysom, ‘Nilsson in the Bronze Age: The place of prehistory in the history of Greek religion’
2014 Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge, ‘Searching for “popular religion” 70 years after Martin P. Nilsson’
2012 Henk S. Versnel, ‘Implications and complications of polytheism: Three Greek test cases’
2010 Jan N. Bremmer, ‘The agency of statues: From Homer to Late Antiquity’
2008 Stella Georgoudi, ‘Blood, dirt and purity. Sacrifice and purification in the Greek world’
2006 Gunnel Ekroth, ‘The wild, the innocent and the domesticated. They all died in a Greek sanctuary’
2003 Petros Themelis, ‘The cults on Mount Ithome at ancient Messene’
2001 Robert Parker, ‘The problem of the Greek cult epiteth’
1999 François de Polignac, ‘Ritual contexts and the definitions of “public space” in early Greece’
1997 Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, ‘Hylas, the Nymphs and others. Myth, ritual and ethnicity’
1994 François Lissarrague, ‘Images and rituals: Religious aspects in Attic vase-painting’
1993 Fritz Graf, ‘Signs for the gods. Ritual and communication in ancient Greece’
1992 Walter Burkert, ‘Ikonographie und Ritual im dionysischen Bereich’
1991 Michael H. Jameson, ‘Greek religion: The public record’
1990 Kevin Clinton, ‘Myth and cult: The iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries’
