Quantitative approaches to sacred Roman spaces in southern coastal Latium

Michael Teichmann

«Archeologia e Calcolatori» 2020, 31.1, 121-144; doi: 10.19282/ac.31.1.2020.06

Abstract

The present paper aims at studying Roman sanctuaries from the late 4th century BC to the early 4th century AD in southern coastal Latium, a region of crucial importance for the development of Roman religion. Quantitative GIS-based research was undertaken to study sacred spaces in their natural and cultural landscape context. A first research question concerned the role of good accessibility of sanctuaries as a factor, which could have influenced the choice of construction sites for villas. Further research focused on the visibility of sanctuaries in respect to other elements of the cultural landscape such as villas and roads. Cost-distance and viewshed analyses were undertaken to answer these questions. As the analyses are based on published and archived site data, several issues related to the use of legacy survey data had to be faced. Results show that the role of sanctuaries as factors of attraction might not have been extremely high. While a few major sanctuaries with extraordinary visibility conditions are situated in the study area, the overall trend does not confirm the choice of particularly visible spots as a general rule.

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