Ritual in the Roman World
Approaches to Theory and Practices
Edited by Alessandra Esposito Edited by Jason Lundock Edited by Kaja Stemberger Flegar Edited by David Walsh
Hardback (Published)
(April 2026)
ISBN: 9781805832294
8.07 x 11.46 inches
Price: $74.00
On back order
This volume examines ritual in the Roman world through small finds, depositional practices and temple sites, showing how diverse, evolving ritual behaviours emerged within a globalised empire. It highlights continuity across pre‑Roman to post‑Roman phases and even modern reuses of ritual spaces.
Ritual in the Roman World expands our current understanding of what are considered ritual behaviours in the Roman period, bringing together research on small finds, depositional practice, and temple sites. As a material representation of the attempt to put order and definition to one’s world, examining ritual practices offers insight into both social and cosmological structures within a given cultural context. In this context, the Roman world is understood functioning as a globalised/glocalised system and fostering a spectrum of ritualised behaviours across its different regions and periods. This was the result of a long habit of incorporating and rejecting local traditions encountered during its expansion as well as interfacing with those of the peoples outside its borders.
By bringing together research on small finds as well as temple sites, this volume presents new discoveries in the field as well as innovative interpretative approaches applied to instances of continuity of use of ritual sites, including across the pre-Roman/Roman/post-Roman transitions, as well as instances of modern uses of Roman period ritual spaces so to frame ritual behaviours beyond the traditional connection of ritual practices and religious beliefs.
1. Reflections on the Intention and Structure of the Current Volume – Jason Lundock
2. Ritual of Place
Chapter 1. Ritual and Belief in the Villas of Roman Britain – Martin Henig
Chapter 2. Hexagonal Structures, Pythagoras, and Ancient and Early Christian Theories of Number – Anthony King
Chapter 3. Cults, Rituals, and Temples in the Fourth-Century CE Levant Between Pragmatism and Religious Ideology – Jacopo Dolci
3. Objects and Action in Ritual Practice
Chapter 4. Fluid Meanings, Surface Tensions: Coin and Pewter Deposits and Watery Contexts in Roman Britain – Adrian Chadwick and Eleanor Ghey
Chapter 5. Proselytism and the Propagation of Polytheistic Cults – Aaron W. Irvin
Chapter 6. Ritualised Epigraphic Performance: Understanding the Performativity of Gender in Roman Dacia – Nina Andersen
Chapter 7. The Craftsman’s Tale: Discerning Rituals and Beliefs in the Archaeological Record – Sonja Willems
4. Focused/Site Specific Studies
Chapter 8. Interpreting Responses to Abandoned Sacred Spaces, Then and Now: Ritual Litter at the Carrawburgh Mithraeum – David Walsh
Chapter 9. The Sanctuary of Gournay-sur-Aronde and the Development of Ritual Archaeology in France – Carole Quatrelivre
Chapter 10. Being Roman in Malta: Artefacts, People, and Rituals in the Sanctuary of Tas-Silġ – Filippo Airoldi, Francesca Bonzano, Elisa Grassi
Chapter 11. Transformed: Hybridity and the Animal Performer in Romano-British Cult – Miles Clifford
Alessandra Esposito was awarded her PhD in Classics from King’s College London in 2018 with a thesis titled Performing the Sacra. Priestly roles and their organisation in Roman Britain, now published by Archaeopress. She has since published and presented on the archaeology of religion and hoarding practices in the Roman North-West and she is more recently working on digital methods applied to archaeology of religion.
Jason Lundock completed his undergraduate degree at Harvard University and his graduate and post-graduate studies at King’s College London. He has worked at the Portable Antiquities Scheme, the British Museum and the Appleton Museum of Art. His doctoral thesis, A Study of the Deposition and Distribution of Copper Alloy Vessels in Roman Britain, was published with Archaeopress. He is currently Associate Course Director for Historical Archetypes and Mythology at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida.
Kaja Stemberger Flegar obtained her PhD in Roman mortuary archaeology from King’s College London in 2018, and has since continued researching several topics of theoretical archaeology and identity studies, with a firm basis in thearchaeological material from Roman Slovenia. She is employed as a small finds specialist at the private archaeological company PJP, d.o.o., within which she recently co-founded and became head of Institute Primus Devotus.
David Walsh received his PhD from the Department of Classical and Archaeological Studies at the University of Kent in 2016 for his thesis Development, Decline and Demise: The Cult of Mithras in Late Antiquity. He has since published his thesis along with various articles on the archaeology of Roman religion. He has taught at the universities of Kent and Newcastle and worked for various archaeological field units. He is currently a Career Development Fellow at Durham University.
- Edited by Alessandra Esposito
- Edited by Jason Lundock
- Edited by Kaja Stemberger Flegar
- Edited by David Walsh
Other Titles in this Series
Roman Copies, Collecting, and Culture in the Bay of Naples and Beyond
Papers in Honor of Eugene J. Dwyer
Roman Frontier Studies 2009
Proceedings of the XXI International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies (Limes Congress) held at Newcastle upon Tyne in August 2009
A Dramatic Event in Late Roman Florence
The Anomalous Burial Site Discovered beneath the Uffizi Gallery
Excavations at Chester. Roman Land Division and a Probable Villa in the Hinterland of Deva
Excavation at Saighton Army Camp, Huntington, Chester
Corpus des amphores romaines produites dans les centres de mer Noire
Collections des musées de la côte turque de la mer Noire (Ereğli, Amasra, Sinop, Samsun, Giresun, Ordu, Trabzon et Amasya)
L’ artisanat dans les cites antiques de l’Algérie
(Ier siècle avant notre ère –VIIe siècle après notre ère)
From the Adriatic to the Alps: Transport and Trade Networks in Roman and Late Antique Northern Italy
Roman Frontier Archaeology – in Britain and Beyond
Papers in Honour of Paul Bidwell Presented on the Occasion of the 30th Annual Conference of the Arbeia Society
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