Ritual in the Roman World

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

• Edited by Alessandra Esposito
• Edited by Jason Lundock
• Edited by Kaja Stemberger Flegar
• Edited by David Walsh