What is meant by sacred landscape? How can ancient sacred landscapes, greatly eroded by time, be reconstructed? In the landscape, how did the religious dimension relate to the economic, social and political dimensions? In this book, scholars with many years experience of archaeological approaches to Greek religion offer answers to these questions, by presenting a variety of case studies.
The examples selected relate to various regions of the Greek world (Attica, Arcadia, Boeotia, Euboea, Asia Minor) and the periods covered range from the Late Bronze Age to the Byzantine era. Several chapters are based on survey data, which are examined in relation to written sources. Topics covered include the development of sacred landscapes over the long term and the integration of major sanctuaries into their wider environment (Olympia, Kalapodi, Artemision at Amarynthos).
The contributions reveal different understandings of a sacred landscape. As a modern concept, the latter is examined in a methodological introductory chapter. Two recent ethnographic examples, one from Morocco and the other from India, provide further food for thought. The book is intended as an incentive to exploit the heuristic potential of the concept of sacred landscape, while defining its boundaries.
INTRODUCTION Samuel Verdan, Sylvian Fachard, Thierry Theurillat
I. METHODS AND INSPIRATIONS
1. Samuel Verdan Between Paysage Religieux and Sacred Landscape: On the Use
and Meaning of Terms / Entre paysage religieux et sacred landscape: questions
de définitions
2. Romain Simenel Landscapes of Baraka: Mausoleums, Ruins and Boundary
Markers in Morocco
3. Raphaël Rosseleau Entre la forêt et lOcéan, le temple. Le paysage
religieux à Puri (Odisha, Inde)
II. LONG-TERM PERSPECTIVES ON GREEK SACRED LANDSCAPES
4. François de Polignac Perceptions et constructions du paysage religieux
en Grèce ancienne : formes et fonctions de la centralité
5. Madeleine Jost Quel paysage religieux en Arcadie sans Pausanias?
6. John Bintliff, Anthony Snodgrass, Phil Howard, Christel Müller The
Sanctuary of the Muses in Context: The Contribution of Landscape Archaeology
7. Birgitta Eder Between Zeus and Poseidon: Sacred Landscapes around
Olympia and Samikon
8. Katja Sporn Kalapodi and the Evolution of a Sacred Landscape in Ancient
Phokis
9. Jan Paul Crielaard Towards a Reconstruction of the Cultic Landscape of
Archaic and Classical Karystia
10. Catherine Morgan Between Political Community and Sacred Landscape in
Archaic Northwest Greece (ca. 850470 BCE)
11. Michael Kerschner Cultic Space, Cultic Landscape and Mythical Landscape
in Ephesos
12. Lorenz E. Baumer Un réseau à plusieurs couches dynamiques du paysage
religieux de lAttique envisagé dans la longue durée
13. Fotini Kondyli Sacred Spaces, Natural Places: The Role of the Natural
Environment in Byzantine Religious Life
III. INTERSECTING PERSPECTIVES ON THE ARTEMISION AT AMARYNTHOS
Introduction
14. Denis Knoepfler A Kome and a Hieron Unlike any Other? Amarynthos within
the Political and Religious Structure of the Eretrian Polis
15. Sylvian Fachard, Angeliki G. Simosi, Chloé Chezeaux Tracing the Sacred
in the Eretria-Amarynthos Survey Project
16. Samuel Verdan, Tamara Saggini, Tobias Krapf, Jérôme André, Olga Kyriazi,
Thierry Theurillat The Landscape and the Sanctuary: Wild Spaces, Waters and
Ruins at Amarynthos
Dr Samuel Verdan is senior researcher at the Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece. He has directed excavations in Eretria (Euboea) and taught at the University of Lausanne. He studies Early Iron Age pottery and is collaborating in the exploration and study of the Artemision at Amarynthos. He has published the Geometric phases of the sanctuary of Apollo at Eretria and a study on Eretrian Geometric pottery. He has edited a volume on pottery quantification and a book devoted to a Gulag camp.
Sylvian Fachard is Full Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Lausanne and Director of the Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece. Formerly A.W. Mellon Professor at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, he has held research positions at Harvards Center for Hellenic Studies and Brown University. His work focuses on Greek fortifications and the territorial organization of poleis, promoting a landscape approach for the study of rural fortifications. He directed surveys and excavations in Eretria and Amarynthos. He's the co-editor of the Athens and Attica in Prehistory volume with Archaeopress, the co-editor of The Destruction of Cities in the Ancient Greek World, CUP, 2021, with E. Harris.
