Alise-St.-Reine (Burgundy, France) and Santa Mariña de Augas Santas (Galicia, Spain) share a unique history. In both places, the hagiography of Santa Marina of Antioch in Pisidia (Anatolia), usually ...known in Europe as Margaret, was adopted as the hagiographic account of two local martyrs, Sainte-Reine and Santa Mariña, who were extensively worshipped for centuries and still receive cult. Since the sixteenth century, literary scholars have stressed the falsity of the hagiographic attribution established in both places. However, the close relationship with the local topography of both traditions immunizes them against the effects of erudite criticism. The fact is that the fusion of the story with the place served to construct a much stronger reality that we refer to as “topological”. Some non-exclusive ideas can explain this situation: the need for Christian universalism to occupy previously polytheistic territories, the operation of places as lieux de mémoire that are well attested by anthropological studies, and how the psychology of memory works using places as memory devices.
Landscape multifunctionality is increasingly recognized as an important aspect in sustainability and developmental debates. Yet, how and why a multifunctional landscape configuration develops over ...time has not been sufficiently studied. Here we present the geoarchaeological investigation of the Santa Mariña de Augas Santas site, in northwestern Spain. We focus on the role of religious practice, and of its interplay with productive strategies, in landscape transformation. A geochemical, mineralogical, and geochronological characterization of the pedo-sedimentary record (including XRF, EA-IRMS, XRD, OSL and 14C measurements) allowed to characterize catchment scale sedimentation processes in relation to agricultural activities. The geographical and chronological coincidence of production functions with documented religious activities demonstrate that both aspects shared geographical spaces during the last millennium. Current landscape multifunctionality at Santa Mariña is thus not the final outcome of a specific evolution, but an essential aspect of traditional land use strategies through history and a driver of change. This work highlights the need of a long-term study of the processes of landscape configuration when assessing the sustainability of traditional productive systems.
Summary
Special buildings used as saunas have been found in certain large hillforts in the north of Portugal and in the Cantabrian coastal area of Asturias and Galicia in Spain. The principal aim of ...this study is to highlight the importance of these buildings in the archaeology and art of the European Iron Age, where they are very rarely mentioned. Two approaches are developed: in Parts 1 and 2, we explain the structure of the buildings, their function, and the current debate surrounding their dating. In Parts 3 and 4, further analyses are developed on their position in the landscape, associating the saunas with the public life of the hillforts, and on the decorative structure of the pedras formosas (‘beautiful stones’) found in some of them, and their relation to certain artistic trends in so‐called Celtic art.
An Archaeology of the Sky in Gaul in the Augustan Period García Quintela, Marco V; González-García, A César; Espinosa-Espinosa, David ...
Journal of skyscape archaeology (Online),
02/2023, Letnik:
8, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Ancient Gaul was transformed during the reign of Augustus (r. 31 BC–14 AD) through a major programme of city building. The new Roman cities were constructed according to topographic, health and ...ritual considerations, and we hypothesise that their orientations also reflect distinct celestial conceptions held by the Gauls and by the Roman emperor Augustus. Our study of the orientation of 60 cities verifies the existence of coherent patterns, and distinguishes two dominant schemes: a pattern prevailing in the south and focused on cardinal orientations, possibly related to the dies natalis of Augustus; and a pattern dominant in the north, focused on the dates of the festivities at the beginning of the seasons from the Celtic tradition. We argue that the orientation of the cities was used by the Gallic elites to express the validity of their cultural tradition when they became a part of the Roman Empire.
La description faite par César des attributs du dieu gaulois Mercure et la présentation que fait Strabon de la colonie de Lugdunum utilisent une série de cinq thèmes semblables. On essaie d’expliquer ...ce fait avec l’application de la « formule canonique » proposée par Lévi-Strauss. Celle-ci rénove les arguments par analogie en introduisant le jeu du changement. L’emploi de cette « formule » permet d’envisager autrement la façon dont la tradition gauloise est réélaborée dans la construction d’une nouvelle identité culturelle au temps d’Auguste.
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