EAA2021: Abstract

In the 3rd–1st centuries BCE, Iberian societies in eastern Hispania faced the presence of Carthage and Greeks and eventually Roman conquest. In particular, the Roman expansion in the Iberian Peninsula led to dramatic changes in social structure, resource management, language and writing, and settlement structure, which often resulted in the transformation from oppida to urban structures.

In this contribution, I examine how these changes were manifested in the religious field and how different actors, especially Iberians and Romans, represented themselves and expressed or negotiated identities in this context. These socio-religious practices can be traced in sacred architecture and modifications of buildings, votive material (e. g. pottery, bronze figurines and statues) and the imagery in ritual contexts. The study of these materials helps to understand the various strategies of representation and the extent to which sacred landscapes could serve as political resources and spaces of social negotiation during the Roman-Republican period.

Iberian Peninsula, Hispania, Sacred Landscapes, Identity Negotiation, Social Representation

 Abstract (PDF)

Robinson Peter Kramer¹