University of Richmond Professor Awarded Center for Hellenic Studies Fellowship

February 26, 2003

Julie Laskaris, associate professor of classical studies at the University of Richmond, will spend the 2003-04 academic year as a fellow of the Center for Hellenic Studies, a division of Harvard University in Washington, D.C. She will be on sabbatical from Richmond.

Laskaris will continue researching a book-length project depicting how the spread of religious cults might have contributed to the transmission of medicinal drugs from ancient Egypt and the Near East to Greece.

"Cults of foreign gods and goddesses associated with health and healing may have provided one means of transmitting medical knowledge," she said. She will look back as far as the Bronze Age (c. 1400-1200 B.C.) but concentrate most of her work on the period between 800-600 B.C. "Many of the plants associated with the deities were not native to Greece yet are mentioned for their pharmaceutical properties in later Greek medical texts," she said. It is possible that the plants were considered sacred because of their healing properties and that "the priests and priestesses knew how to use them medicinally."

Laskaris previously published an article and book section on the topic.