The
Cambridge Ritualists were a recognised group of
classical scholars, mostly in
Cambridge, England, including
Jane Ellen Harrison,
F.M. Cornford,
Gilbert Murray (who was actually from the
University of Oxford),
A. B. Cook, and others. They earned this title because of their shared interest in
ritual, more specifically their attempts to explain
myth and early forms of
classical drama as
originating in ritual, mainly the ritual seasonal killings of
eniautos daimon, or the
Year-King. They are also sometimes referred to as the
myth and ritual school, or as the Classical Anthropologists.