libation

A libation is a ritual pouring of a liquid as an offering to a deity, spirit, or honored dead. The term is used primarily in the study of ancient and contemporary religious practices to describe a ceremonial act of pouring liquid on an altar, statue, or ground while prayers are recited or supplications are made. Libations may accompany prayers, sacrifices, oaths, or acts of hospitality, and can function as a sign of reciprocity between humans and the divine or ancestral realm.

In the ancient world, libations were common across civilizations. In Mesopotamia and Egypt, liquids such as beer, wine, water, or milk were poured on altars or tombs. In classical Greece and Rome, wine was the standard offering to gods and heroes, often poured at sacred precincts before feasts or as part of funeral rites. Similar practices occurred in other regions, and many cultures maintained forms of pouring offerings to ancestors, spirits, or deities in temples, households, and sacred sites.

The liquids used vary by tradition and purpose, but common substances include wine, water, milk, oil, honey, and grain-water mixtures. The act may symbolize purification, hospitality, gratitude, renewal, or remembrance, and it is often performed before meals, at the conclusion of a ceremony, or at funerary sites to honor the dead or deities. In modern contexts, libations persist in neo-pagan, revivalist, and some Hindu, Buddhist, and African diasporic rituals, and the term is sometimes used metaphorically to describe a formal dedication or tribute.