Negotiating the Temple-Script Women's Narratives among the 'Confession-Texts' of Western Asia Minor

Since the publication of Georg Petzl's corpus in 1994, the 'confession-texts' of Maeonia and other areas of western Asia Minor have attracted a good deal of scholarly attention. The present paper focuses upon some of their implications for lived ancient religion, viewing these texts as the result of tense and difficult, often protracted, negotiations over the interpretation of serious or debilitating illness within large village communities between individuals, families, neighbours, 'the community' and the representatives of local temples, all of whom have their own perceived interests to defend as best they can. The key analytic device employed is a contrast between individual / family, 'social script' and 'temple script'. In this paper, it is the role of women, which has hitherto not been much emphasised, that is at the centre of attention.