In order to shed light on the question of urban religion from an archaeological perspective this contribution takes the path of contrasting urban religion with religion in non-urban contexts – so-called rural religion. The paper aims at differentiating the lurking dichotomy and pleads for operationalising ambivalence and complementarity in archaeology of religion for a better understanding of the role of religion for social cohesion and distinction.

Along examplary cases of urban settlements and sacred places in Umbria from the 3rd c. BCE, a time of socio-political and -cultural changes to the new political system of the Principate starting in the late 1st c. BCE I examine the urban and non-urban aspects of religious places and manifestations to see what role religion played in the course of the mentioned changes. I focus on the interaction of different socio-spatial contexts – small cities, villages, hamelts – and sacred places to test the hypotheses that a) religion (architecture, dedications), also if situated in or close to the city, can show strong non-urban, and if one will, rural aspects and that b) religious agents (insitutions, object, architecture, people) – in whatever place – have transformative power. Hence, religion, carried by and embedded in religious agents, does not only transgress, but also play with the borders between the socio-spatial settings of the „urban“ / „non-urban“ to control and establish social cohesion as well as distinction.

An example will be Hispellum, where we can track on the one hand how religious agents borrow inspiration from places outside (e.g. the temple of Apollo and the temple of Venus), establishing strong relations to such places (i.e. Rome). On the other hand it is case in point where the concept of „urban integration“ (Williamson 2021) can be developped further to a ‚rural integration‘: From this agentic setting religion percolates from Hispellum to the countryside, e.g. to the village of Mevania (Bevagna) and to water-related sacred places (Lago dell‘Aiso and Laghetto dell'Aisillo) where urban aspects of religion are absent. In contrast to this, at the sacred area at the source of the river Clitumnus, a sacred place established around a natural phenomenon, visitors, responsibles and users, so the claim, stress urban aspects of religion with their activities and performances of religion. However they also also deliberately emphasize the non-urban, even ‚de-urbanized‘ dimensions of religion at this place.

Underpinned by less contextualised material from Fulginia, Perusia, and Spoletum the cases show that a focus on the productive and dynamic tensions and ambivalences of the urban, ‚de-urbanized‘ and non-urban contexts of religion allows for carving out the lived aspects of space and religion (Lefebvre 1974, Orsi 1997, Mcguire 2008, Rüpke – Raja 2015) and their in processes of social cohesion and distinction. Looking through an urban lens reveals another layer of religion in Roman Italy beyond the hierarchical concepts of ‚Roman imperialism‘ - its formative power in the manifold social dynamics.

H. Lefebvre, La production de l'espace (1974).

M.B. McGuire, Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life (2008).

R. Orsi, “Everyday Miracles: The Study of Lived Religion,” in: D.D. Hall (ed.), Lived Religion in America: Toward a History of Practice (1997), 3–21.

R. Raja – J. Rüpke, Appropriating Religion: Methodological Issues in Testing the ‘Lived Ancient Religion' Approach, Religion in the Roman Empire 1, 2015, 11–19.

C.G. Williamson, Urban Rituals in Sacred Landscapes in Hellenistic Asia Minor (2021).