"These new - in fact very old - beliefs had many features that appealed to people. They were decorated with exotic ceremonies that promised the hope of salvation for the soul, in some cases to become members of a purified elite, and allegorical myths that defined the universal order and the individual's place in the universe. Most importantly, they included gods who responded to the wishes and hopes of rural people who tied their lives to the land and the farm animals they raised, and whose income and cultural level were lower than those living in cities. The old gods of the Greeks and Romans were not concerned with any of these problems. People were no longer concerned with the gods' relationships with each other, but with themselves. This change, which at first glance gave the impression of a tendency towards rationalism, actually signaled a period full of a strong sense of fatalism and superstition. So much so that during the Roman period, the number of spells, curses and damnations increased, and the power of the gods over their subjects reached the point of being their sole and absolute rulers. They were no longer distant and inaccessible like the Greek gods, but the restrictions they imposed on social life had also increased."
Confession inscriptions found in the northeastern Lydia and Phrygia regions of Western Anatolia between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD are texts that provide striking information about the beliefs and daily lives of rural people of the period. The helplessness of the people who adapted the identities of their traditional gods to Greek gods such as Zeus and Apollo and worshipped these gods in the face of this 'supreme power' is hidden in their belief that all this could only have been due to a sin they committed and their prayers to the gods for forgiveness when they searched for their lost health, demanded justice when they were wrongly accused or lost their only asset, their farm animals.
This book examines the religious structure of rural Lydia and Phrygia in the Roman period, based on the atonement inscriptions. At the end of the book, a catalogue is added, which brings together all the atonement texts that have been found to date and presents their Turkish translations.