¿Hubo ritos de paso cruentos en el orfismo?

El modo de vida a que estaban sometidos los iniciados en el orfismo se caracterizaba por la abstención de alimento animado y el rechazo al sacrificio cruento. Pese a ello, dos textos considerados testimonios clave para el estudio y reconstrucción de los ritos y creencias órficos hacen mención explícita del sacrificio cruento y el consumo de carne. Para superar la aparente contradicción de ambos testimonios con las doctrinas órficas se ha propuesto que estas prácticas se adscriben a un primer ritual de iniciación que constituiría un rito de paso entre la condición de profano y la de iniciado. Sin embargo, es preciso examinar los paralelos literarios e iconográficos que ofrecen otros rituales griegos y orientales para determinar si los citados testimonios órficos constituyen casos aislados que no responden a un uso ritual común o si, por el contrario, estas prácticas pueden ser consideradas ritos de paso para alcanzar la condición de iniciado

Age models of northern North Atlantic sediment cores

Benthic foraminiferal stable isotope records from four high-resolution sediment cores, forming a depth transect between 1237 m and 2303 m on the South Iceland Rise, have been used to reconstruct intermediate and deep water paleoceanographic changes in the northern North Atlantic during the last 21 ka (spanning Termination I and the Holocene). Typically, a sampling resolution of ~100 years is attained. Deglacial core chronologies are accurately tied to North Greenland Ice Core Project (NGRIP) ice core records through the correlation of tephra layers and changes in the percent abundance of Neogloboquadrina pachyderma (sinistral) with transitions in NGRIP. The evolution from the glacial mode of circulation to the present regime is punctuated by two periods with low benthic d13C and d18O values, which do not lie on glacial or Holocene water mass mixing lines. These periods correlate with the late Younger Dryas/Early Holocene (11.5-12.2 ka) and Heinrich Stadial 1 (14.7-16.8 ka) during which time freshwater input and sea-ice formation led to brine rejection both locally and as an overflow exported from the Nordic seas into the northern North Atlantic, as earlier reported by Meland et al. (2008). The export of brine with low ?13C values from the Nordic seas complicates traditional interpretations of low d13C values during the deglaciation as incursions of southern sourced water, although the spatial extent of this brine is uncertain. The records also reveal that the onset of the Younger Dryas was accompanied by an abrupt and transient (~200-300 year duration) decrease in the ventilation of the northern North Atlantic. During the Holocene, Iceland-Scotland Overflow Water only reached its modern flow strength and/or depth over the South Iceland Rise by 7-8 ka, in parallel with surface ocean reorganizations and a cessation in deglacial meltwater input to the North Atlantic.