Votive offering

From Traditional Witchcraft Wiki Project

A votive deposit or votive offering is an object left in a sacred place for ritual purposes. This practice has ancient roots, and survives even today in the coin thrown in the wishing well and the rag tied in the branches of the hawthorn. Such folk practices are widespread & varied in their nature, often times being performed habitually with no knowledge of the meaning underneath.

These offerings may be made for many reasons, such as to petition for aid, to gain the favour of certain spirits and gods, to give thanks, and so forth. Sometimes a votive petitioning may be a form of a curse, such as a curse-tablet or an offering to a well famous for its cursing powers.

In Europe there are votive deposits dating back to the Neolithic with polished axe hoards, and this reaches a peak in the late Bronze Age. High status artifacts such as swords and spearheads were often buried or more commonly cast into bodies of water or peat bogs, from where they could not possibly have been recovered. Often all the objects in a ritual hoard are broken, 'killing' the objects to put them even further beyond utilitarian use before deposition. The purposeful discarding of valuable items such as swords and spearheads is thought to have therefore have had ritual overtones. The items have since been found in rivers, lakes and former wet-places (now drained by modern agriculture) by metal detectors, members of the public, and archaeologists. In archaeology, votive deposits differ from hoards in that although they may contain similar items, votive deposits were not intended for later recovery.