Gravisca Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Dans son livre de 1998, Devins, Dieux et démons. Regards sur la religion de l'Étrurie antique, Jean-René Jannot, s'appuyant sur les travaux de M. Torelli, faisait figurer à juste titre le sanctuaire de Gravisca dans une rubrique sur les « cultes de contact et sanctuaires portuaires » où il présentait le sanctuaire de Gravisca comme une « sorte de « concession » à fonction cultuelle » (p. 104 sq.). Le terme de « concession » constituait alors un moyen habile d'éviter d'entrer dans un difficile débat sur la question de savoir si Gravisca répondait à un modèle polanyen du port of trade sur lequel les historiens de l'économie du monde grec s'étaient partagés jusque dans les années 90 1 . Ces derniers se demandaient si les emporia grecs antiques respectaient les conditions d'un port of trade, à savoir la neutralité, la marginalité et la fixation des prix selon des normes administratives. Nous voudrions poursuivre le débat grâce aux découvertes effectuées, depuis la parution du livre de J.-R. Jannot, par l'équipe réunie autour de M. Torelli, 1.

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- Etruscan Archaeology, Etruscology, Gravisca

The Mediterranean basin was a multicultural region with a great diversity of linguistic, religious, social, and ethnic groups. This dynamic social and cultural landscape encouraged extensive contact and exchange among different communities. This book seeks to explain what happened when different ethnic, social, linguistic, and religious groups, among others, came into contact with each other. What means did they employ to mediate their interactions? How did each group construct distinct identities while interacting with others? What new identities came into existence because of these contacts? Denise Demetriou brings together several strands of scholarship that have emerged recently, especially ethnic, religious, and Mediterranean studies. It reveals new aspects of identity construction in the region examining the Mediterranean as a whole and focuses not only on ethnic identity but also other types of collective identities, such as civic, linguistic, religious, and social identities.

In recent years drones have become an innovative and powerful tool for the documentation of archaeological sites and for the identification of buried remains. In this study, firstly, the Greek-Etruscan sanctuary of Gravisca (Tarquinia, Italy) was documented using drone aerial photogrammetry. Secondly, it has been possible to accurately identify around the site the marks of buried structures analysing the health status of vegetation through the multispectral remote sensing and applying vegetation indexes. The identified marks may allow to hypothesize the presence of an Isis sanctuary in Gravisca, already attested by epigraphic sources.

- by FOLD&R the Journal of Fasti Online and +1
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- Archaeology, Archeologia, Isis Cult, Aerial Photogrammetry

Sanctuaries associated with emporia were contact zones for people from various social and ethnic backgrounds. Here local inhabitants encountered visitors from almost all parts of the Mediterranean. The archaic sanctuaries at Gravisca, Pyrgi and S. Omobono in Rome were such sites where we find ample evidence for cultural contacts between Etruscans, Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans. These contacts, however, did not necessarily manifest themselves in the same manner everywhere. Local variables such as individual agents, economic situations or the political orientation of the city upon which the sanctuary depended could have a significant influence. It is therefore imperative to take these factors into account when considering these sanctuaries as contact zones.

This article compares Naukratis to other Greek emporia in the Mediterranean in order to explore religion in cosmopolitan settlements: Did individuals' choices of what gods to worship relate to the settlements' multiethnic and commercial nature? How did religious practices change in these communities? Did religion impart new ways of organizing society and structuring the polis? The article shows the competing religious discourses in Greek emporia and argues that religious practices were fluid, led to religious innovation, and actively shaped politics, trade, and even the polis itself.

- by Marie-Laurence Haack
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- History, Archaeology, Etruscan Archaeology, Etruscology

Numerous sanctuaries in ancient Italy and beyond have yielded small figurative votive objects made of terracotta or bronze. Based on a model of symbolic communication adapted from the work of cultural anthropologist Victor Turner, my contribution explores what exactly can be said about the functions and uses of such objects in the context of ritual (symbolic) interaction, and seeks to reconstruct such ritual action. The study thus contributes to the wider question of the possibilities but also the limits in reconstructing ritual action from objects, a concern central to the study of material religion. Such considerations need to be based on intact and well-documented archaeological find contexts. Tarquinia’s port Gravisca, located on Etruria’s Tyrrhenian coast, offers such a context: There, some of the votive material deposited in the local sanctuaries has come to light in its original location and assembly. A close reading of this original setup combined with iconographic analysis allows me to challenge accepted opinions about seemingly fixed correlations between the votive image and the divinity to which the ritual was presumably addressed. The archaeological analysis of these votive objects – how they were strategically exposed to the view of visitors – with the application of a communication model allows for an exploration of the votives’ function as media of religious communication against the background of competition among sanctuaries.

- by Mareile Haase
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- Material culture of religion, Ritual, Symbolic Interaction, Archaeology of Religion