Theme:
4. Persisting with Change: Theory and Archaeological Scrutiny
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
BC_Before Church. Cult buildings in Ancient Mediterranean Europe. Session 1. Beyond the Threshold: "Indoor" Cult-Places in Mediterranean Europe
Content:
The study of the relationships between religion and archaeology - and specifically our ability to identify evidence for religious activity and associated places of worship in the archaeological record - has progressed considerably in recent decades, thanks not only to the advances in archaeological methodology, but also to the development of theoretical debates in papers and monographs (e.g. Bradley 2005, Fogelin 2007, Kyriakidis 2007).
Here, we will focus on a specific theme, a kind of ‘fil rouge’ that crosses space and time: the emergence and evolution of cult-places over the centuries in the context of Mediterranean Europe: the aim is to identify the lines of their development at different stages and in different areas of Mediterranean Europe.
Thanks to interdisciplinary research, many features can be identified, not only in terms of the type of structures or objects, but also in terms of organic offerings (seeds, meat portions, skeletons, etc.), with the aim of reconstructing the rituals performed in such places and their changes over time and space.
Papers will deal with the origins and early developments of “indoor” cult-places (natural caves, artificial hypogea, specific structures within inhabited areas, sanctuaries, etc.), conceived in the beginning (probably since Paleolithic) as a kind of chthonic world beyond cave entrances and then progressively realized in built structures. Contributions will range from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. The session will welcome papers addressing the following themes: the theoretical and methodological reflections on the topic of the session, the revision analysis of previous contexts using new methodologies and, finally, the latest discoveries from ongoing archaeological research.
Bibliography
Bradley R. 2005, Ritual and Domestic Life in Prehistoric Europe. London.
Fogelin L. 2007, The archaeology of religious ritual. Annual Review of Anthropology 36: 55-71.
Kyriakidis E. 2007 The Archaeology of Ritual (Cotsen Advanced Seminars 3). Los Angeles
Keywords:
Caves, Cult places, Worship, Sacred hut, Pre-protohistory, Archaeology of Ritual
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Alessandro Guidi (Italy) 1
Co-organisers:
Federico Nomi (Italy) 2
Giulia Saltini Semerari (United States) 3
Anne Lehoërff (France) 4
Affiliations:
1. Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici - Università degli Studi Roma Tre
2. Scuola Superiore Meridionale
3. Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan
4. CY Cergy Paris Université
THIS SESSION CAN NOT BE SELECTED AT THIS MOMENT