COASTAL SANCTUARIES
Early in the sixth century, rich sanctuaries of a new type, with monumental temples, altars and foreign worshippers, began to develop at the Caeretan and Tarquinian ports Graviscae, Punta della Vipera and Pyrgi (Riva & Stoddart 1996).
Greek participation was gradually replaced by Etruscan during the fifth-fourth centuries. At Graviscae, inscriptions identify Aphrodite/Turan, Hera/Uni and Demeter/Vei; the stone anchor of the Greek merchant Sostratos names Aeginetan Apollo (Herodotus 4.152; Moretti et al. 1971; Santuari 141-44; Leighton 2004: 128— 31). By 270 BCE, the cult was reduced to a ruined courtyard with a healing cult where anatomical votive offerings, many related to childbirth (depicting swaddled infants or uteri), were deposited (Torelli 1977: 422, 428-9; Cornelia 1978). Torelli (1997b) also describes a cult of Adonis, with a tomb and rebirth rituals. Lamps and a cist (a box-like, buried container) containing grain and a piglet resemble those in Greek Demeter sanctuaries with Thesmophoria rituals (Tarquinia Etrusca 125-35). The sanctuary at Punta della Vipera housed a mundus or point of convergence for the underworld, an altar channelled into the earth.The seashore cult of Uni/Eileithyia/Astarte3 at Pyrgi developed around 580 BCE from small precincts for several gods with rectangular shrines/altars dedicated to Uni and Suris (Faliscan Soranus/Apollo), patron of kleromancy, a form of divination with metal, leaf-like tokens (series) (Santuari 127-41; Colonna 2006: 132-42). Around 510 BCE, Temple B was erected with a Greek-style peristyle and Tuscan terracotta roof, and a perimeter building with identical cubicles (ritual dining rooms?) and unusual decoration (Ridgway 1990). The motel-like plan is sometimes identified as a site of sacred prostitution, but without secure evidence (see Glinister 2000; Budin 2008: 247-54). The large Temple A (ca. 460 BCE) shows a canonical Tuscan temple plan. The gold plaques of Velianas mark the one sure instance of a public voturn (vowed offering) by an Etruscan city. After the sanctuary was dismantled (second-first c. BCE), hundreds of anatomical terracottas were deposited in ongoing popular rituals.
More on the topic COASTAL SANCTUARIES:
- Biodiversity of India
- Bredholt Christensen Lisbeth, Hammer Olav, Warburton David. The Handbook of Religions in Ancient Europe. Acumen,2013. — 456 p., 2013
- Ritual Violence and Human Sacrifice in the Americas
- 4 THE FIRST WORLD WARS AND THE ‘CLASSICAL’ AGE 494 BCE–404 BCE