Alejandro G. Sinner / Víctor Revilla Calvo (eds.): Religious Dynamics in a Microcontinent. Review by José Carlos López Gómez (original) (raw)

The book under review is the first volume in the Archaeology of the Mediterranean World series. It includes twelve essays on Roman religion in Hispania in its various cultural, linguistic, ethnic and religious contexts. The book is divided into two parts: the first, Rituals in context: Spaces, Scenarios and Landscapes, explores major topics such as the spatial organization of cult spaces, the forms of religious expression of the devotees, and how these sacred places served to promote a sense of community. Grau opens this section analysing the processes of religious transformation in the sanctuaries of Iberian communities in the eastern peninsula between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE. He discusses how the conquest led to territorial restructuring and a reinvention of ritual practices, but he also identifies strong local reminiscences in the continuity of temples as markers of the symbolic landscape and in the regional variations of votive offerings. Grau argues that local communities could construct their "religious landscapes" and collective memory based on