Rock sanctuaries, sacred landscapes, and the making of the Iberian pantheon
Date
2022
Authors
Sinner, Alejandro G.
Ferrer i Jané, Joan
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Religions
Abstract
Sanctuaries are common spaces of interaction between humankind and the gods. In
many religious systems, mountains and other elevated topographical features are known to have
formed part of these privileged spaces of communication. It is not surprising that open-air and,
in many cases, rock sanctuaries are the cultic spaces par excellence among the pre-Roman peoples
of the Iberian Peninsula. In this article, we offer a more nuanced picture of these architectonically
humble but culturally rich sacred spaces by studying the Palaeohispanic inscriptions recorded in
rock sanctuaries located in the territories of the Iberian peoples (fourth–first centuries BCE). Special
attention will be paid to the corpus of inscriptions in Cerdanya (Pyrénées-Orientales and Catalonia),
where more than 150 texts have so far been identified. After a brief introduction contextualizing
the Rock Sanctuaries, the Iberian language, and the epigraphic habit of its speakers, the first section
of our article analyses the characteristics that enable us to interpret most of these inscriptions as
religious and votive formulations. The second half of the paper discusses what these inscriptions can
reveal about the Iberian pantheon and how these rock sanctuaries formed a consolidated religious
landscape that was to survive the Roman conquest. The reinterpretation of the Celtiberian sanctuary
of Peñalba de Villastar will be fundamental to put forward the hypothesis that, while Iberian and
Celtiberian places of worship and pantheons had points of contact, they were mostly dissociated
from each other prior to the Roman arrival.
Description
Keywords
Iberian language, religion, deities, Iron Age, Hispania, Palaeohispanic epigraphy, pantheon
Citation
Sinner, A. & Ferrer i Jané, J. (2022). “Rock sanctuaries, sacred landscapes, and the making of the Iberian pantheon.” Religions, 13(8), 722. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13080722