المجلة الجزائرية للدراسات الإنسانية
Volume 5, Numéro 1, Pages 88-104
2023-08-24

Space Sacralisation And Roman Religious Communication In The Danubian Provinces. Project Summary And Research Perspectives

Authors : Csaba Szabó .

Abstract

The so-called Danubian provinces were one of the largest macro-units of the Roman Empire, which produced a rich archaeological and epigraphic material during the Principate (1st-3rd century AD). Most of this material was produced by the human agency participating in religious communication with the divine. Although a large part of the archaeological evidence was published in the last century, the local and universal aspects of Roman religious communication in the Danubian provinces were not yet analysed in a synthentic way. This study will focus on seven Roman provinces (Raetia, Noricum, Pannonia Superior, Pannonia Inferior, Moesia Superior, Moesia Inferior, Dacia) and their human, material and divine agencies of Roman religion analysed through the methodological framework of space sacralisation, religious communication and glocalisation. The article presents a new space taxonomy, focusing on the formative role of macro-, meso- and micro-spaces in Roman religious communication and will present some of the research fields and interdisciplinary approaches with great perspective for Central-Eastern European research and beyond. The following paper is a short summary of the author's research on Roman Dacia (now Romania) since 2010 and his postdoctoral project on the Danubian provinces in the period of 2018-2022 . It is not intended to be a complete, systematic analysis of the macro-region indicated in the title and the considerable amount of epigraphic and archaeological material associated with it, which would be far beyond the scope of this paper and the physical and intellectual possibilities of an individual researcher. The aim of the paper is to summarize the research history and major features of archaeology of religion that has been accelerating in the region in recent years, as well as the main results of the postdoctoral project conducted at the Department of Religious Studies of the University of Szeged between 2018-2022, briefly touching upon the future perspectives and the untapped areas of research.

Keywords

Danubian provinces ; Roman Empire ; archaeological material ; epigraphic material ; religious communication ; divine agency ; space sacralization