ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the thingly qualities of cult instruments (instrumenta sacra) and their active role in the ritualised assemblages associated with the performance of civic sacrificial activities. It asks questions about how the potential affordances of cult instruments as material things functioned within ritualised assemblages, endeavouring to move beyond rather generalised categorisations of the types of objects used by humans to bring about specific aspects of the ritual process to focus on the relationships that might be formed when their potential affordances were brought together with humans. In particular it is concerned with determining the consequences of the agency that was produced by these relationships for the lived experiences of an individual and the production of personal, deeply proximal forms of religious knowledge. Although material instruments of cult were necessary for enabling ritual to be performed, this chapter demonstrates that material things such as incense containers (acerrae) and the distinctive leather cap worn by the flamines (the galerus), might also be a much more necessary component within the production of religious knowledge than has been previously acknowledged.
