Recherche par auteur > Biella Maria Cristina

Sacred areas play a privileged role in the ancient landscape. In terms of both cult types and contexts, we deal with a broad spectrum: urban, suburban and rural contexts can have different audiences (local, regional, super-local, etc.). In recent years, research has mainly focused on how the structuring of space and the value and reuse of the past are factors in the affirmation and construction of identity.

The panel aims instead to address the temporal dimension of places of worship through their praxeological interconnection. The wide usability and ritual character of the actions that take place in the sacred areas make them subject to different fates: sanctuaries are often reused over the centuries, adapted to the “spirit of the times”, others are destroyed – for example as a result of political conflicts etc. – conquered, re-functionalised. In a sense, sacred places are subject to 'recycling' both conceptually and materially, considering that ideas, cults, but also structures and materials are dedicated, reused or refunctionalised in the contexts through the centuries.

The panel will focus on ancient Italy, with a broad chronological perspective – from the Late Bronze Age to Late Antiquity and beyond – to enable a full understanding of the changes and persistence of the individual case studies in a longue durée perspective. Some questions will serve as guidelines for the discussion. Places of worship are fundamentally different from other contexts: through their use as lived sacred spaces, movable objects, votive offerings, but also architectural elements, from the most valuable decorative elements to simple building materials become charged with sacred significance. How do we deal with these objects when they are no longer needed, when shrine structures and buildings are renovated or space for storage becomes scarce? Can the various rituals be better understood through a praxeological approach? Not all materials find a place in bothroi or favissae, some are (deliberately) recycled. Can these practices be systematised? What happens in contrast when remnants and traces of previous uses are found during construction work? How is the past handled in such cases? Is it possible to revive, reconstruct and “recycle” the past? Finally, from a comparative perspective, we are interested in diachronic changes in the practices described above, especially in times of upheaval and transformation.