From sacred site to monumental sanctuary : how the perception and manipulation of the landscape affected religious experience in Iron Age Central Adriatic Italy

Thesis

This thesis explores the sacred landscape and ritual practices of Iron Age people living in the Marche and bordering regions of Central Adriatic Italy. It achieves this by examining the evidence of votive deposits of figurines and pottery in contexts associated with particular 'natural' features of the landscape, namely, water sources, caves and mountain peaks. Phenomenologies of these places/sites are constructed in order to understand how people using them perceived their landscape and manipulated it in order to meet their religious needs. The relationships between these places and the broader landscape are assessed, where 'landscape' means the physical landscape of this Central Adriatic region, which includes the patterns created by geology, vegetation and climate, as well as by human settlement, such as sites of habitation, cemeteries and routes of communication.

Issues regarding how to use phenomenology and whether it is a valid methodology are addressed. Investigation is made into the interrelationships between the landscapes of Iron Age Central Adriatic Italy, the material culture pertaining to religion and the people who interacted with these, in order to write a history of the religion of the 'Picenes'.

The conclusions drawn are that 'natural' landscape features were integral to the religious experiences and practices of the Iron Age communities here and that they largely appear to have been locales for rituals associated with the fertility of the people and land, and of people's safe passage through the landscape.

Authors: Betts, E

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-qxvxkvn2p
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford