A contextual approach to non-urban sanctuaries: a micro-regional study of the cult place of Laghetto del Monsignore (Lazio, Italy)

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STUDIES IN MEDITERRANEAN ARCHAEOLOGY VOL. CLI

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UNLOCKING SACRED LANDSCAPES:

SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF RITUAL AND CULT

IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

edited by

Giorgos Papantoniou, Christine E. Morris and Athanasios K. Vionis

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Founded by Paul Åström

The publication of this volume has been funded by the Irish Research Council, the A.G. Leventis

Foundation and the Research and Innovation Foundation of Cyprus

Cover image: A Minoan bronze worshipper figurine and a sacred landscapes skyline. The

design represents the idea of Mediterranean sacred landscapes and their artefacts, thus

capturing the scope and spirit of the UnSaLa research network (illustrations by J. Doole

[figurine] and B. Cheimariou [landscape skyline])

Published by Astrom Editions Ltd

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ISSN: 0081-8232

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La Trobe University, Melbourne

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Peter Fischer

Despo Pilides

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iii

Spatial theories about the role of sanctuaries often focus on their position within urban territories. However, this urbano-centric focus can result in static, anachronistic models of sacred landscapes. This is particularly problematic for cult places that pre-date urban settlement-systems, such as the case study of this article, the cult place of Laghetto del Monsignore. This site is attributed contradicting functions; some identify it as an isolated nature sanctuary, functioning independently of society. Others have emphasised its relation with the nearby settlement of Satricum.

To better understand how Laghetto del Monsignore was embedded in local society and how the development of Satricum into an urban settlement affected the cult place, we here adopt a holistic approach, combining a comprehensive analysis of the material culture with spatial analysis of the micro-regional setting of the cult place. This approach highlights transformations in the micro-regional settlement pattern and points out multiple use contexts of the cult place: in the Orientalising and Archaic periods it was part of the sacred landscape of Satricum. However, rural communities and shepherds passing the cult place along transhumance routes also frequented the cult place in its earliest phase, and may have continued to do so alongside Satricum´s urban community.

Introduction

In the study of sacred landscapes, the function of sanctuaries is often interpreted within an urbanocentric framework. Their position is described as either urban or extra-urban, but in both cases a relationship with a town is assumed. This is also true for central Italy, where sanctuaries that are not situated within settlements are usually

described as santuari extraurbani or suburbani, both for the pre-Roman and the Roman periods. Since in some periods urban centres were clearly the dominant structural element in the sacred landscape, such labels that are grounded in core-periphery models may be valid, but for periods without urban centres this is more problematic. Particularly for these sanctuaries with a chronology that started prior to the development of urban centres, this framework results in a static, anachronistic view of the sacred landscape that reflects only one phase of the cult place.

This chapter aims to address this issue by developing a context-based approach to the study of sanctuaries that are not situated in or near a settlement, here referred to as non-urban sanctuaries. In this approach we will contextualise non-urban sanctuaries not in terms of static core-periphery models, but as autonomous places with changing roles, functions and dependencies that mirror the changing socio-economic and geopolitical context of Iron Age and Archaic society. We will focus on the relationship between changes in the function of non-urban sanctuaries and the changing local context provided by the landscape, infrastructural networks and settlement patterns, in which the process of urbanisation played a central role.

The case study to which this approach is applied concerns the non-urban sanctuary of Laghetto del Monsignore (Latium Vetus, central Italy) (Fig. 1), which has yielded evidence for a considerable longevity of use, covering the period between the 10th and 5th centuries BC. In order to detect possible changes in the function of this cult place and to evaluate how these changes relate to the process of urbanisation, we will use a contextual approach, which incorporates: a) a reconstruction of its setting within the landscape and infrastructural networks; b) a thorough study of the artefacts found at the cult place, which shed light on changing cult practices; c) a diachronic contextualisation of the sanctuary within micro-regional settlement developments. We will then relate the observed characteristics of the sanctuary with the process of urbanisation, critically evaluating existing models for the function of non-urban sanctuaries.

From G. Papantoniou, C. Morris & A.K. Vionis (eds), Unlocking Sacred Landscapes: Spatial Analysis of Ritual and Cult in the Mediterranean (SIMA 151)

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The function of non-urban sanctuaries

Sanctuaries and urbanisation in Latium Vetus

Between the Early Iron Age and the post-Archaic period (between the mid-10th and mid-5th centuries BC; see Table 1), the sacred landscape of Latium Vetus changed profoundly. During the Final Bronze Age cult places in caves were abandoned for open-air cult places, mostly related to natural landmarks (Guidi 1991, 2014). From the Early Iron Age onwards these nature sanctuaries largely disappeared in favour of cult places in settlements, the so-called village sanctuaries (Kleibrink 1998: 453), which developed in tandem with the, by then, proto-urban settlements. Their location at the centre of the settlement, the supposed appearance of cult huts in the 8th century BC, and the increasing quantity of ritual objects all testify to the increasingly central role of sanctuaries

within Iron Age communities (Guidi 2009, 2012, 2014). By the 6th century BC, the previous village sanctuaries had acquired a prominent position within the urban centres and had transformed into large complexes with rich votive deposits and monumental temples. Concurrently, cult places appeared both at the border of and within the territories of larger settlements (Bouma & van ‘t Lindenhout 1997: 101; Cifani 2002: 255). In some parts of Latium Vetus this structure would endure into Roman times; in south Latium, however, the towns and their sanctuaries largely declined and/or disappeared in the course of the post-Archaic period (Attema & Bouma 1995: 148).

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29 2. A contextual approach to non-urban sanctuaries: a micro-regional study of the cult place of Laghetto del Monsignore

Latium Vetus was characterised by villages or clusters of settlements (Bietti Sestieri 1992: 45–54). In the course of the Early Iron Age people relocated from these small, dispersed settlements to nucleated villages situated on easily defendable plateaus (Guidi 2009: 148; Fulminante 2014: 9, 46). This proto-urbanisation process was characterised not only by more or less evenly distributed nucleated settlements, with several tiers of smaller rural sites around them, but also by the development of territoriality during the Iron Age (Attema 2005: 121–124).

There is an on-going debate about when these proto-urban settlements actually became urban centres (e.g. Fulminante 2014: 47; Guidi 2014: 643). But leaving aside such issues of definition (see Osborne 2005 for a critique on normative approaches to urbanisation), it is important for our purposes to note that by the Archaic period urbanisation in Latium Vetus reached its zenith: centres became equipped with public and private buildings, planned infrastructure and defensive works, and had well-defined territories that were characterised by scattered farmsteads and hamlets whose inhabitants cultivated the surrounding countryside.

In the post-Archaic period many of these centres within this region decreased in size or were abandoned. This decline took place in a turbulent period, during which many armed conflicts occurred between different alliances of Romans, Latins and other ethnic groups (Gnade 2008b: 60). Especially in south Latium, this led to decreasing territorial control on the part of individual urban centres, with more fragmented communities living scattered over the countryside, in smaller nucleated settlements and isolated sites (Attema 1993: 227; de Haas 2011: 285– 286). Within this process Rome expanded its territory considerably, resulting in the incorporation and perhaps also the reorganisation of rural territories, including those of formerly independent urban centres in its surroundings (Cifani 2002; Attema et al. 2017).

The development of sanctuaries in Latium Vetus shows that the process of urbanisation and the socio-economic dynamics it entailed directly influenced the sanctuaries. This holds especially for the village sanctuaries, as they became the centre of the proto-urban and later proto-urban communities. Conversely, these cult places may have also played an active role in this very process of urbanisation as they may have

functioned as points of attraction in the rise of these villages (Attema 1993: 215). According to Guidi, the development of cult activities suggests that ‘rituals were not so much a pale reflection of socio-economic structure but, on the contrary, one of the driving forces of Italian protohistoric social evolution’ (Guidi 2014: 646). How the non-urban sanctuaries were affected by urbanisation is much more difficult to understand.

The sacred landscapes of central Italy: current models

Numerous studies deal with sacred landscapes and, in particular, with the function of the non-urban sanctuaries within them. A prime example is de Polignac’s work on the origins of the Greek city-state, in which he uses a bi-polar model of the city with two foci of power: a central sanctuary in the urban centre and an extra-urban sanctuary at the border of its territory (de Polignac 1984; revised in 1994). Similar models have been applied to central Italy, relying heavily on the urban-rural dichotomy and suggesting a strong correlation between sacred landscape and territorial organisation. For example, based on their presumed dependency on urban centres, Edlund (1987) roughly distinguishes two categories of sanctuaries:

1) Sanctuaries dependent on urban centres, which include ‘urban’ (e.g. sanctuaries situated within the urban centre), ‘extra-mural’ (e.g. sanctuaries situated in close proximity to the urban centre) and ‘extra-urban’ sanctuaries. The 'extra-urban' category includes all sanctuaries in the territory of an urban centre that would have been controlled by the inhabitants of this urban centre, making them subject to the social, political and economic processes of their communities.

2) Sanctuaries that were independent of urban centres, which include: ‘rural’ sanctuaries (e.g. modest shrines, only serving the rural community), ‘nature’ sanctuaries (e.g. small cult places related to natural landmarks) and so-called ‘political’ sanctuaries (e.g. sanctuaries serving as a neutral meeting place due to their location at the boundary of different territories).

Similarly, Zifferero (2002) emphasises the importance of sanctuaries in territorial organisation. For the urban centre of Caere in Etruria he distinguishes different types of sanctuaries according to their role in marking boundaries between different Period Latial Phase Date (Nijboer 2008; Attema & de Haas 2005: n. 7)

Early Iron Age Latial Phase IIA+B 950–825 BC

Late Iron Age Latial Phase III 825–750 BC

Orientalising period Latial Phase IVA+B 750–580 BC

Archaic period 580–500 BC

Post Archaic period 500–350 BC

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spheres of influence: between the city and its territory, between cultivated and uncultivated areas and between different urban territories (Zifferero 2002: 262). In addition to these urban-dependent types, Zifferero (2002: 262) discerns three types of sanctuaries that do not mark boundaries: these are sanctuaries associated with harbours, ‘nature’ sanctuaries and sanctuaries related to secondary centres.

Problematising the models

The models used to describe the function of non-urban sanctuaries as discussed in the previous section are based largely on two interrelated concepts. Firstly, both models rely heavily on the core-periphery concept, stressing the relation between the distribution of sanctuaries and the socio-political organisation of the territory. Secondly, the models highlight the liminal function of sanctuaries. This liminal zone covers an area of transition between cultural, political and religious entities. While useful for some sanctuaries and valid in specific chronological contexts, the general application of these models is problematic for several reasons.

First, in all models a strong emphasis is placed on the function of sanctuaries in relation to the urban centre and the organisation of its territory. However, not only can we imagine these relations to have been more fluid, other sorts of relations may have been at play as well: in addition to a relationship with urban communities, non-urban sanctuaries could have serviced peoples and communities independent of their relationships to urban centres, or they could relate to infrastructural networks rather than cities. For the Greek world, Sinn (1993) has stressed that sanctuaries could also mark routes, accommodating safe crossing at frontiers. McInerney (2006) points out the economic role of sanctuaries for giving safe passage to herds. This function as a ‘road’ sanctuary could also apply to those central and southern Italian sanctuaries which were located along transhumance routes between the plains and the mountains (Stek 2008: 69–73).

Equally, non-urban sanctuaries could relate to villages or groups of isolated farms, servicing rural populations that are independent of urban centres, as was the case in Magna Graecia (Edlund 1987: 92). In Samnium, targeted field surveys have shown that rural sanctuaries also relate to village communities (Pelgrom & Stek 2010; Stek 2015). In Etruria, although under the political control of the urban centre, rural sanctuaries probably served rural communities as well and were not directly related to the inhabitants of the town (Edlund 1987: 92). A similar function may be suggested for sanctuaries in Lazio. Survey data from the surroundings of a sanctuary may provide important clues for understanding the embedding of non-urban sanctuaries in local rural communities.

Second, these models are not well suited to a

diachronic understanding of sanctuaries, as both their organisational context and functions may change over time. Liminal zones and territorial boundaries in particular, but also what is perceived as the centre or the periphery, changes over time; the role of a sanctuary in marking boundaries or connecting core and periphery is therefore period-specific and such a role may not apply to the entire life-span of a sanctuary (Malkin 1996: 75; Zifferero 2002: 247). This is especially true for the sanctuaries in Latium Vetus that predate the rise of urban centres and their associated forms of territorial organisation. Thus, while the chronology of a cult place is often used as proof of continuity of use, continuity of use does not necessarily mean continuity of function.

This issue is particularly relevant in light of the distinction between ‘independently’ functioning 'nature’ sanctuaries and the ‘culturally constructed’ sanctuaries with formalised cults and monumental temples (Edlund 1987; Bradley 1991; Jannot 2005; Fabech 2006). As Bradley states, on sites with long chronologies a change of form could take place, combining both ‘natural’ and ‘cultural’ features (Bradley 1991: 137). Edlund also acknowledges that sanctuaries, often predating the development of urban centres, may change function over time. However, her model does not allow for such a combination of natural and cultural features, as they would become either extra-urban sanctuaries or rural sanctuaries (Edlund 1987: 42–44, 141–144).

The final limitation to these existing models is their limited engagement with the archaeological evidence for ritual practices at the sanctuaries. According to Wilkins (1996: 3), society and rituals are interactive and cannot be studied independently in a meaningful way. The lack of study of the material evidence of cult places is especially a disservice for non-urban cult places with long use histories, where we often have very little evidence for the earlier phases other than the ritual objects. For these non-urban cult places archaeological material is key for understanding how cult practices and the function of a sanctuary might have changed over time.

Although the use of core-periphery models has been useful in understanding cult places within the sacred landscapes of city-states, for the non-urban sanctuaries with a long chronology they may result in static interpretations, focusing on a single period of the sanctuary’s history. The study of non-urban sanctuaries would therefore be better served with an approach that takes as its starting point the development of the cult place itself within its local context, thus avoiding any preconceived ideas about its relations with urban centres.

Contextual approach, methodology and data

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31 2. A contextual approach to non-urban sanctuaries: a micro-regional study of the cult place of Laghetto del Monsignore functions of non-urban sanctuaries, in this chapter

we will adopt such a contextual framework for the study of the cult place of Laghetto del Monsignore. This framework considers: first, the relations between the landscape, infrastructural networks and the location of the cult place; second, the cult place itself through the study of its material evidence for ritual practices carried out at the site from the 10th to the 5th centuries BC; and third, its relationship with changing settlement systems and the process of urbanisation as occurring at the nearby settlement of Satricum (Fig. 1). This framework allows us to evaluate the changes that took place at the sanctuary within the broader developments in settlement and social organisation in Latium Vetus, especially in relation to the urbanisation process.

The cult place of Laghetto del Monsignore was discovered in the 1960s when thousands of objects indicative of ritual activities were found in and on the banks of a small lake, which is fed by a spring (Giovannini & Ampolo 1976; Crescenzi 1978). The site, one of the oldest Latial cult places (Guidi 1991: 411), was frequented over a period of approximately five centuries (ca 950–450 BC). There is no evidence that the sanctuary was situated near a large settlement or that it included a monumental temple—although the presence of a small cult building cannot be excluded (Quilici & Quilici Gigli 1984: 130–131; Quilici Gigli 2004: 242–244). While in terms of the aforementioned models the site would be classified as (and is indeed often described as) a nature sanctuary or water cult (Veloccia Rinaldi 1978: 24; Nenci 1985: 336), it is more usually considered as part of the sacred landscape of Satricum, located ca 4km to the southwest (Giovannini & Ampolo 1976: 347; Crescenzi 1978: 54; Veloccia Rinaldi 1978: 24, Maaskant-Kleibrink 1992: 108–109; Peroni 2004: 420). However, it remains unclear how this relationship should be envisaged and what function the cult place of Laghetto del Monsignore would actually have had within Satricum’s territorial organisation or for its community.

In an attempt to better understand the potentially changing role of the cult place of Laghetto del Monsignore, we will discuss:

• First, the landscape and topography of the surroundings of Laghetto del Monsignore and its links to infrastructural networks, including waterways, roads and pastoral routes.

•

Second, the artefactual evidence for changing cult practices at the site. We present a quantitative analysis of the different material groups in the votive deposit, on the basis of which we can assess diachronic changes. The assemblage combines four collections, amounting to 11,401 artefacts, that were studied as part of a collaboration between the Groningen Institute of Archaeology and the Soprintendenza per I beni archeologici del Lazio (van Loon 2017).

•

Third, a diachronic analysis of the local context of the cult place. For this, we reviewed settlement data within a pre-defined ‘catchment’ of the sanctuary, here modelled as all terrain within a

two-hour walk (e.g. half a day return journey) (Fig. 2) and based on a cost distance modelling using slope and buffered streams as cost factors. As the relief in this area is limited and the model assumes a two-way journey, we have used an isotropic cost function based on a simplified version of Tobler’s algorithm that averages uphill and downhill movement (Conolly & Lake 2006: 215–224; Herzog 2013).

The evidence for settlement within this area stems from a range of sources, mainly topographic studies and systematic field surveys (Belardelli & Pascucci 1996; Attema et al. 2008, 2010b; Lilli 2008; Alessandri 2009; van Loon et al. 2014) (Fig. 2). These data are far from uniform, both in quality and in terms of geographical coverage, as only limited areas have been surveyed intensively in the immediate surroundings of the sanctuary (e.g. within an hour’s walking distance). For areas at a greater distance surveys have focused mainly on areas to the north and south, whilst areas to the east and west of the sanctuary have hardly been explored. The reconstruction of settlement patterns and their development is therefore, by necessity, partial and possibly biased, but for our purposes it provides a useful insight into the presence/absence and complexity of the settled landscape around the sanctuary.

A case study: the cult place of Laghetto del

Monsignore

Landscape and topography

The sanctuary of Laghetto del Monsignore is situated in the northern part of the Pontine plain, near present-day Campoverde. It is situated in a transitional area between the tuff landscape of the Alban Hills to the north, the coastal dune landscape to its southwest, the Astura river valley to the south and the low-lying Pontine plain to its east (see Feiken 2014: 13–15). The topography of its direct surroundings is defined by a series of streams running in a north–south direction through a depression, enclosed to the west by the higher Late Pleistocene dunes and, to the east, a middle Pleistocene tuff ridge; downstream these streams merge to form the Astura river, draining towards the Tyrrhenian Sea (Fig. 3). The depression is filled with Holocene peaty and clayey sediments and in historical times is known to have been a marshy area, reclaimed in the 1920s.

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Figure 2. The case study area around Laghetto del Monsignore (prepared by de Haas)

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33 2. A contextual approach to non-urban sanctuaries: a micro-regional study of the cult place of Laghetto del Monsignore herds. Recent coring studies near the site suggest that

the lake was probably considerably larger in antiquity (J. Sevink pers. comm., based on recent corings; cf. Quilici Gigli 2004: 241), confirming its attractiveness for herds as a source of fresh water.

Indeed, the site of Laghetto del Monsignore was situated in a prominent position between the Tyrrhenian coast, the site of Satricum and interior areas such as the Alban Hills and, further north, the Sacco River valley (cf. Maaskant-Kleibrink 1987: 13). The Astura Valley constituted the primary axis of communication (Bouma et al. 1995: 185) from the coast into the Alban Hills, although the river itself was not navigable upstream from Satricum (Sevink 2009). The cult place was also located in the vicinity of one or more road junctions. In its vicinity a road from Satricum branched into a northern route towards Velitrae and a west-bound route towards Ardea, three of the major (proto-)urban centres in the wider area (CLP 1976: tav 1; cf. Maaskant-Kleibrink 1992: 108; for traces of a Roman road near the site, see Quilici Gigi 2004: 242). Perhaps there was another route from Laghetto del Monsignore to the east, connecting to the road between Satricum and the site of Caprifico (see Knoop 1986: fig. 1).

Material study

The assemblage of the Laghetto del Monsignore comprises 11,401 objects in clay, metal, amber and glass (Table 2), of which more than 97% consists of ceramic objects, mostly vessels (van Loon 2017). The metal objects are mostly bronze fibulae and human representations in sheet bronze; the amber, glass and faience objects are all beads. A small number of tiles (eight fragments) are present among the collection and indicate that there might have been a small building related to the open-air deposit in the late 7th and 6th centuries BC.

The ceramic wares can be broadly divided into three groups. The first consists of locally produced impasto (handmade pottery) and coarse ware pottery, spanning the complete chronology of the cult place, between the 10th and 5th centuries. Of the 5334 objects belonging to this group, almost a third constitute so-called ‘miniatures’: mostly miniaturised versions of domestic vessels, such as jars, cups and bowls. The full-sized vessels are predominantly kitchen wares (mostly jars, but also bowls, lids, stands etc). Besides the kitchen wares, this group also includes weaving utensils in impasto and finer impasto table-wares in impasto rosso and impasto bruno (for example the typical Latial spiral amphorae, jugs and several types of cups). The second group is formed by the ‘Etruscan’ wares, including 2741 objects of bucchero and 3016 objects of etrusco-corinthian pottery. The bucchero vessels, some of which may have been produced locally (see Nijboer 1998: 82–83), comprise mostly table-wares related to drinking. The etrusco-corinthian pottery

includes, besides table-wares, 172 perfume bottles (aryballoi and alabastra). The third group, with only 46 fragments, comprises sherds of depurated ware, which include attic pottery.

Because no stratigraphy was recorded during the excavation of the cult place (Crescenzi 1978) and most of the artefacts were not gathered during systematic investigations, the chronology of the cult place was deduced by means of a stylistical and typological comparison of the artefacts with those from other central Italian contexts. Figure 4 shows the chronological distribution of the ritual objects using the media ponderata of all rim fragments and complete objects (see Fentress & Perkins 1988 for the use of the media ponderata). The miniature pottery is not included in the figure, as most types are difficult to date precisely.

Although nine objects can be dated to the Eneolithic and Bronze Age (see van Loon 2017: chapter X), the analysis of the assemblage indicated that the cult place itself cannot be dated before the beginning of the Early Iron Age. Its earliest phase is represented by a small number of objects only, but as these earliest finds include miniatures we may be sure that they reflect activities of a cultic nature.

During the 9th and8th centuries BC there is a slight increase in the number of dedicated objects. Yet, the bulk of the objects can be dated to the second half of the 7th and beginning of the 6th centuries BC (the Late Orientalising and Archaic periods). The material study suggests that we are probably dealing with a mixed deposit of cultic offerings, votives and remains of ritual feasting. A similar strong rise in the number of ritual objects is visible in cult places throughout Latium Vetus, and was presumably caused by the fact that, from the Late Orientalising period, sanctuaries had replaced burial grounds as the principal arena for wealth display (Smith 1996: 186–188). At Laghetto del Monsignore the increase in pottery deposition is mainly due to the introduction of the imported bucchero and etrusco-corinthian table-wares that were probably used during ceremonial

No. %

Impasto/coarse ware 3737 32.8%

Miniature impasto/coarse ware 1597 14.0%

Bucchero 2741 24.0% Etrusco-corinthian 3016 26.5% Depurated ware 46 0.4% Bronze/iron/lead 68 0.6% Amber/glass/faience 68 0.6% Lithic/stone 75 0.7%

Other (mostly bone) 53 0.5%

Total 11,401

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banquets by the aristocracy (van Loon 2017: 308–311). Despite this drastic change in practice visible in the materials, traditional elements, such as the dedication of miniature impasto and coarse ware vessels, indicate the persistence of certain ritual practices throughout the lifespan of the cult place. The continued presence of full-sized impasto and coarse ware jars and bowls in the assemblage can be related to meat sacrifice, probably followed by sacrificial meals (van Loon 2017: 311–314), a custom very much rooted in Latial cult practices (Cristofani 1990: 112; Bouma 1996: 228; Zuchtriegel 2012: 243).

From the mid-6th century BC onwards the imported table-wares disappear and the number of ritual objects drops significantly, suggesting a gradual demise of the cult place. The presence of a few coarse wares, bucchero and attic fragments testifies to sparse cultic activities during the end of the 6th and the 5th centuries BC, after which the cult place was probably abandoned.

Contextualising Laghetto del Monsignore

To gain insight into the relationships between the topographical setting of the sanctuary, the changing ritual practices as observed in its ceramic assemblage and its changing social context in relation to urbanisation, we turn now to a discussion of the archaeological evidence for changes in settlement organisation in the area within a two-hour walking distance from the sanctuary, assuming that if people were living in this area they were potentially regular visitors of the cult place. In the analysis we distinguish four periods that reflect different stages in the process of urbanisation:

a) the Early Iron Age (ca 950–825 BC), when proto-urban settlements developed;

b) the Late Iron Age and Orientalising period (ca 825– 580 BC), when proto-urban settlements increasingly obtained territorial control;

c) the Archaic period (ca 580–500 BC), when the proto-urban settlements had developed into proper proto-urban centres with associated territories; and

d) the post-Archaic period (ca 500–350 BC), when, in the Pontine region, urban settlements declined and territorial control became less strong.

The Early Iron Age

Very few Early Iron Age sites were found during field surveys and topographic studies around Laghetto del Monsignore (Fig. 5). Four sites, located at a distance of 1.5 to 2 hours walking to the southeast of Laghetto del Monsignore, possibly have an Early Iron Age phase. However, this is far from certain considering the low diagnosticity of the collected surface ceramics. It is thus doubtful if we may postulate a pattern of Early Iron Age rural settlement in the surroundings of Laghetto del Monsignore.

The only site near Laghetto del Monsignore with firm evidence for early Iron Age settlement is Satricum. Unlike other major settlements in Latium Vetus that already started in the Final Bronze Age (Alessandri 2009; Attema et al. 2010a; Fulminante 2014), Satricum’s earliest occupation dates to the beginning of the Early Iron Age (Alessandri 2007: 95). During the 9th century BC the settlement consisted of small clusters of huts on a tuff plateau which in Archaic times became the ‘acropolis’ of Satricum (Stobbe 2008a: 23), although the settlement may have included more such clusters of huts in other parts of the later town.

Tombs of this period are known from both the acropolis (these are child burials: Maaskant-Kleibrink 1987: 90) and from the so-called Northwest necropolis, situated ca 600m from the acropolis (Waarsenburg 1995: 426). The burials show a lack of social differentiation and probably represent several extended families (Bietti Sestieri 1992: 241; Waarsenburg 1995: 435).

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votive deposit I. The nature of this deposit is debated: some scholars argue this to be a primary deposit with repeated depositions during a longer time span (Bouma 1996: 61, 103; Kleibrink 1997: n. 14), others claim it to be a secondary deposit, deposited just before the construction of Temple I in the Archaic period (Gnade 2000: 25–26). The earliest ritual objects in the deposit are dated by Bouma (1996: 81) to the 11th or 10th century. However, taking into account the difficulties with dating miniature objects (van Loon 2017: 321–322), a starting date in the 9th century, contemporary with the first evidence for habitation, seems more likely (Kleibrink 1997: 151).

In this period sanctuaries probably played a significant role as an incentive for economic activities (e.g. as market places), and were a focal point of the developing proto-urban settlements of Latium Vetus (Guidi 2009: 144; 2014: 641–42). The fact that Satricum did develop into a proto-urban settlement in the Early Iron Age and the cult place of Laghetto del Monsignore did not can largely be explained by the favourable location of Satricum, on a tuff plateau along a river (Gnade 2000: 6).

The Late Iron Age/Orientalising period

With a total of 59 sites that can possibly be dated in

the Late Iron Age and Orientalising period, there is an increase in the number of sites around Laghetto del Monsignore (Fig. 6). However, the degree of rural infill remains hard to establish, since only a limited number of sites can be securely dated to this period. Some can, with confidence, be interpreted as isolated habitation sites, as their artefact assemblages contain storage jars, kitchen wares and cooking stands that one would expect on permanently settled farms. One well-investigated site (site 15143, see Fig. 6) yielded, besides regular domestic vessels and storage jars, also weaving utensils and a miniature vessel, indicating that on some of these sites activities related to animal husbandry and perhaps also domestic cult activities took place (van Loon et al. 2014: 119–125). If we accept the interpretation of these sites as isolated farms, their distribution suggests that they are part of a pattern of dispersed settlement and arable farming on and along the edges of the higher parts of the landscape.

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stratification during the 8th century BC (Waarsenburg 1995: 25). The acropolis huts seem to have been organised around a lacus, an artificial lake (Maaskant-Kleibrink 1992: 13, 108; Waarsenburg 1995: 25). It is not clear if all huts on the acropolis were used for habitation. Besides objects associated with a domestic function and activities such as weaving (Maaskant-Kleibrink 1992: 13), high quality drinking and eating vessels that may be related to ritual feasting are also present in some of the huts (Maaskant-Kleibrink 1992: 123; Stobbe 2008a: 23).

Although cultic activities are surely attested on the acropolis in this period, the character of the cult place is debated. It has been argued that one of the huts below the later temples had a sacred function (Chiaruzzi & Gizzi 1985: 37; Guidi 2012: 141). Other researchers, however, suggest that the cult place was an open-air sanctuary in this period, and that—as at Laghetto del Monsignore—the small lake in the centre of the acropolis was the first focus for cult activities (Maaskant-Kleibrink 1992: 15; Bouma 1996: 94–101).

As in the case of the cult place at Laghetto del Monsignore, the deposit on the acropolis shows a strong increase in the numbers of ritual objects being dedicated (Stobbe 2008a: 27), including substantial amounts of pottery imported from Etruria and Greece

and objects in iron, bronze, silver, gold, faience, amber and ivory (Bouma et al. 1995: 192; Bouma 1996: 155 – 161; Nijboer 1998: chapter III). The votive deposit at Laghetto del Monsignore in comparison had a large quantity of pottery, but only very few imports from Greece and only few non-ceramic objects.

Besides Laghetto del Monsignore and the sanctuary on the acropolis of Satricum, two new cult places were established in the 7th century, both related to the settlement of Satricum (see Fig. 8). The first, the S. Lucia sanctuary, dating between the 7th century and Hellenistic period, is located southwest of the acropolis (Ginge 1996). The second, the Bottacci sanctuary, is located ca 600m northwest of the acropolis (Maaskant-Kleibrink 1992: 19). Although its main phase dates to the Republican period (Bouma 1996: 79), the presence of a small number of objects in bucchero and impasto suggests that cult activity started in the 7th century BC (Waarsenburg 1995: n. 640).

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37 2. A contextual approach to non-urban sanctuaries: a micro-regional study of the cult place of Laghetto del Monsignore and burial evidence. The quantity and quality of the

ritual objects found on Satricum’s acropolis (which differ significantly from those found at the other two sanctuaries) suggest that this cult place became the central place within Satricum’s sacred landscape.

It is likely that the relationship between Satricum and the cult place at Laghetto del Monsignore became stronger as the proto-urban settlement of Satricum gained influence over its surroundings. From the 7th century onwards, direct links between the sanctuary at Laghetto del Monsignore and the communities of Satricum are clearly visible in the decoration patterns on the impasto table-wares at both sites (see Fig. 10); these table-wares were almost certainly produced in Satricum (Beijer 1991: 33–35; Waarsenburg 1995: 429). The Archaic period

The analysis of the survey and topographic data (Fig. 7) indicates that there is a further increase in site numbers around Laghetto del Monsignore in the Archaic period: in total 88 sites have been identified. Although a revision of ceramic chronologies might mean that some of these sites have a later date, the increase can certainly be seen as a reflection of a process of expanding settlement and exploitation of rural areas (see Attema et al. 2017).

The nature and distribution of Archaic sites show some significant changes with respect to the

previous period. First, it is noteworthy that six of the ten sites certainly occupied in the Late Iron Age do not show continuity into the Archaic period. Although quantitatively perhaps not impressive, this observation may reflect discontinuity on a larger scale that in turn could relate to territorial re-organisation. This increase in site numbers is particularly clear around Satricum (admittedly also the area that has been investigated most intensively). Settlement now also occurred in lower-lying areas along the Astura River south of Satricum, between Satricum and Laghetto del Monsignore and in close proximity to the cult place at Laghetto del Monsignore. Site 15141, found during intensive surveys only 250m west of it, included both Archaic impasto and bucchero pottery and hut loam and tiles, probably related to a farm building (van Loon et al. 2014: 117 –118).

Another change concerns the typology of sites: whereas in the Iron Age we are dealing primarily with small isolated sites, in the Archaic period a more elaborate hierarchy of rural sites developed, including small isolated sites with thatched roofs, more substantial tile-roofed farm buildings and larger settlements (presumably hamlets and villages) covering up to several hectares (see Attema et al. 2010a; de Haas 2011).

At the top of this settlement hierarchy undoubtedly stood Satricum, which by the late 7th

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century had developed into an urban centre of some 40ha (Maaskant-Kleibrink 1987: 9; Stobbe 2008b: 30). Enclosed by steep slopes on the north, east and south side, on the west side it was protected by an agger (Maaskant-Kleibrink 1987: 9; Gnade 1999) (Fig. 8). Several roads connected the acropolis with different parts of the lower settlement, in which artisanal activities were also conducted (Gnade 2000: 7–8, 16– 23; 2008a: 51). It was connected to the urban centres of Antium, Ardea and Caprifico by constructed roads (Gnade 2000: 52; 2008a: 51; Quilici 2004).

The acropolis acquired ever more monumental architecture during several phases of habitation (Maaskant-Kleibrink 1987: 34 –35; van ‘t Lindenhout 2010). Starting with small rectangular houses with tiled roofs at the beginning of the 6th century (so-called oikoi), soon also large courtyard houses with multiple rooms and stone foundations were constructed, which were replaced by so-called stoai in the last decades of the 6th century BC (Maaskant-Kleibrink 1987: 90–105). It is quite possible that some of these structures had functions besides habitation; the courtyard houses and stoai may well have been used for activities, such as banquets, organised by the aristocratic families (Kleibrink 1997: 153).

No Archaic period burials have been found in Satricum, indicating a gap between the Northwest necropolis, which ends ca 620, and the Southwest necropolis and the acropolis graves dating to the 5th

century BC (Gnade 2000). This lack of burial evidence is common in Latium Vetus and is commonly interpreted as reflecting a shift in aristocratic competition and display from the private domain of the burial grounds to the public domain of the settlements, where religious, public and private buildings were built (Ampolo 1980: 186; Bietti Sestieri 1992: 243; Smith 1996: 186–188; Bartoloni et al. 2009; Willemsen 2014: chapters 4–5; van Loon & Willemsen in van Loon 2017).

In the Archaic period we see continuity in the sacred landscape from the 7th century BC. As in other towns in Latium Vetus, the village-based sanctuaries transformed into monumental temples in the6th century. On the acropolis of Satricum three successive temples have been reconstructed (de Waele 1997). The first temple (temple 0) is a modest structure, a so-called oikos. The second (temple I) and third (temple II) are monumental structures, both constructed following a large-scale re-organisation of the acropolis.

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39 2. A contextual approach to non-urban sanctuaries: a micro-regional study of the cult place of Laghetto del Monsignore objects (Ginge 1996). The developments observed at

the site of Satricum fit in well with general processes of urbanisation and state formation in Latium Vetus: sites like Satricum grew in population size, social and economic complexity and developed into independent organisational units often referred to as city-states (Pacciarelli 2000; Attema 2004, 2005; Motta & Terrenato 2006; Terranato 2011; Fulminante 2014). These developments also imply increasing levels of territoriality, with urban centres taking control over well-defined hinterlands that were integrated into a socio-economic system centring on the towns and being controlled by urban, land-owning elites (Cornell 2000; Cifani 2002; Terrenato 2011; Attema et al. 2017).

The hierarchical structure of the sacred landscape, already hypothesised for the preceding period, becomes especially clear in the Archaic period. There was a main, central sanctuary at the acropolis and several secondary cult places in the direct vicinity related to the urban community. The role of Laghetto del Monsignore within the sacred landscape is less clear: although the decline in the number of deposited objects (see Fig. 4) may reflect a broader Latial trend, direct links with Satricum are not reflected in the material culture. Also, the cult place was not monumentalised as were the urban sanctuaries of

Satricum. This could either suggest that Laghetto del Monsignore was increasingly marginalised, or rather that it preserved its more traditional character as a rustic cult place.

Post-Archaic period

Major changes occurred in the settlement system in the Late Archaic period (Fig. 9). Within our study area, site numbers decrease slightly and the less varied and poorer material assemblages suggest that economic conditions had deteriorated. While many farm sites, including those situated close to Laghetto del Monsignore, show continuity of occupation, there are also some new foundations, including at least one nucleated settlement east of Laghetto del Monsignore that replaced a series of Archaic farm sites in that area (cf. de Haas 2011: 186–187). In other areas, there is also a tendency towards clustering of small rural sites, a development that suggests rural communities felt a stronger need to live close together. Profound changes are also visible at Satricum: the urban character of the site largely disappeared. The agger may have gone out of use in this period (Gnade 1999) and burial grounds in various parts of the former settlement suggest that Satricum became a more dispersed settlement, with separate burial grounds associated with different

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smaller settlement clusters (Gnade 2000). Some of the finds recorded at the burial grounds are atypical for Latium Vetus (Gnade 2000: 1) and can probably be attributed to people of Volscian descent (Gnade 2000: 130–133). Their presence, and the general changes in settlement and economy observed in the archaeological evidence, fit well with the historical context, which is characterised by 150 years of war between Romans, Latins and Volscians accompanied by migration (Gnade 2008b: 60).

The sanctuaries were also affected by the decline of the town. There is a strong decrease and impoverishment in ritual objects during the late 6th and beginning of the 5th century BC (Bouma 1996: 167–176). At the same time there are also elements of continuity, both in the sanctuaries and in associated artisanal activities (Attema et al. 1992; Nijboer et al. 1995). On the acropolis, southwest of the former temple a second deposit has been identified, dating between the 5th and 2nd century BC (Bouma 1996). The second deposit overlaps with a third one, located centrally on the acropolis, dating between the 4thand the beginning of the 2nd century BC (Heldring & Stibbe 1990: 229–230). The S. Lucia and Bottacci sanctuaries continued to be used in the 5th century BC as well (Waarsenburg 1995, n. 640; Ginge 1996).

Although the three cult places at Satricum and Laghetto del Monsignore show continuity of use, the hierarchical organisation of the sacred landscape (that had developed in the Orientalising and Archaic period) disappeared as Satricum’s urban organisation and its control over the surrounding territory disintegrated. This implies that the relations between the sanctuaries of Satricum and Laghetto del Monsignore also changed. Only few finds attest to cultic activity at Laghetto del Monsignore in this period, but there are no indications that these sparse activities relate to Satricum or its inhabitants.

Discussion: the multiple and changing

functions of the cult place of Laghetto del

Monsignore

The evidence presented above allows us to evaluate what functions the cult place of Laghetto del Monsignore may have had during the various stages of its history. This in turn enables us to critically review and problematise existing hypotheses about its functioning and the urbano-centric interpretive models in which these hypotheses are rooted.

Although the assemblage of Laghetto del Monsignore provides evidence for earlier activity, the first secure evidence for cult activity dates to the start of the Early Iron Age. The scarce votive material in this earliest phase probably reflects low-intensity ritual activity at the cult place; although the occurrence of more extensive rituals using perishable materials

cannot be excluded. There is very little evidence for contemporary habitation in the surroundings of the site, except at Satricum. Its location with respect to pastoral routes, and the presence of a large freshwater source, therefore suggest a function as a reference point for pastoral communities moving from mountains to plains and/or as a place of interaction between such mountain peoples and local communities (Quilici Gigli 2004: 240). However, the votive assemblage does not include materials that have non-Latial characteristics; rather, the Early Iron Age pottery fits within the general ceramic repertoire of Latial sanctuaries, indicating strong regional ties between the various Latial communities. If we are dealing with pastoral mobility, it is therefore likely that this would have been restricted to short-distance transhumance between the uplands of the nearby Monti Lepini and the Pontine plain (Melis & Quilici Gigli 1972: 241; Veenman 2002: 116–126). The material evidence clearly demonstrates that the notion of Laghetto del Monsignore as an isolated ‘nature sanctuary’ is problematic and that the cult place can be seen as part of a larger regional community characterised from the outset by a cultural koiné.

The relation between the cult place of Laghetto del Monsignore and the settlement and sanctuary of Satricum in this earliest period is unclear. Notably, the settlement of Satricum and the sanctuary of Laghetto del Monsignore have an almost analogous start date. Although it seems unlikely that Laghetto del Monsignore was established as part of a ritual landscape focused on Satricum (at its foundation Satricum would not have controlled a well-defined territory), a connection between the two sites is likely from the outset. Although a more detailed study of the cult assemblage from the earliest sanctuary at Satricum is needed for a meaningful comparison with the cult place of Laghetto del Monsignore, both show very similar developments in material culture in the earliest period and it seems likely that in this early stage they fulfilled similar functions, serving mobile pastoral and local groups.

This regional cultural embedding becomes increasingly clear in the Late Iron Age/Orientalising and the Archaic period, when we see an increase in the numbers of ritual objects at Laghetto del Monsignore similar to those noted in Latial village sanctuaries, including that of Satricum. Furthermore, the presence of specific ‘Satrican’ decorative elements on the pottery found in the sanctuary at Laghetto del Monsignore (Fig. 10), is indicative of the direct links with the communities of Satricum.

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and use of the cult place of Laghetto del Monsignore, which became part of Satricum’s increasingly complex and hierarchical sacred landscape. The quantity and quality of the votive gifts in the sanctuary at the acropolis—including early Greek imports and high-quality non-ceramic materials, unparalleled in Laghetto del Monsignore—and the construction of increasingly monumental cult buildings indicate that the sanctuary at the acropolis of Satricum was undoubtedly the central cult place, around which economic activities, including a market and workshops, took place (Nijboer 1998); in addition, two new, secondary sanctuaries developed within the town of Satricum, testifying to an increasing demand for cultic facilities.

How would the cult place of Laghetto del Monsignore have complemented this sacred landscape? Some have suggested that Laghetto del Monsignore functioned as a political or border sanctuary (e.g. Attema & Bouma 1995: 147). However, if we take into account the reconstruction of Satricum’s territory as depicted in Figure 11, Laghetto del Monsignore is located well within Satricum’s territory, at slightly less than one hour’s walk from the urban centre. We cannot exclude that it had some sort of liminal function at the border of cultivated and uncultivated areas around Satricum—although the distribution of Archaic farm sites (Fig. 7) shows that more remote parts of Satricum’s territory were also cultivated.

It is more likely that the cult place performed a role as extra-urban sanctuary in specific cult activities undertaken by Satricum’s urban communities. Similar functions have been proposed for sanctuaries around Rome, which—according to de Grummond (2005)— besides sharing rituals were also involved in binding activities such as religious parades, processions and elite banquets. Considering the direct connection between Laghetto del Monsignore and Satricum provided by the Astura River and a road, it seems likely that such ritual processions took place between the acropolis sanctuary at Satricum and Laghetto del

Monsignore. The cult place was thus incorporated in Satricum’s sacred landscape and acquired functions that fit well in the existing models of extra-urban sanctuaries as proposed by Edlund and Zifferero.

However, the continued deposition of traditional artefacts may suggest that it also continued to serve others, such as rural groups attested by the small rural sites mapped in the surroundings of the cult place. It also is probable that Laghetto del Monsignore continued to attract non-local peoples in the Archaic period: an increasing presence of peoples from interior areas—including the Volscians that are also attested archaeologically at Satricum—is generally accepted and may well have resulted from the presence of seasonal pastoral use of the Pontine plain (Coarelli 1990; Gnade 2002; Cifarelli & Gatti 2006). The continuity of small-scale ritual activity after the end of the 6thcentury BC indicates that these rural and pastoral groups probably continued to donate after the downfall of Satricum, when the large dip in ritual objects at Laghetto del Monsignore indicates that the relationship with Satricum became much less tight.

Conclusion

We acknowledge that some aspects of the re-evaluation of Laghetto del Monsignore’s functions, as discussed here, should ideally be supported by more robust data and future work may well negate or confirm some of our arguments. For example, palaeogeographical research directly around the sanctuary of Laghetto del Monsignore would enhance our understanding of its topography and might even tell us more about possible associated settlement traces (cf. Feiken et al. 2012). Equally, more extensive field survey research within its catchment would tell us more about the extent to which the sanctuary lay within a settled landscape— which would reaffirm its suggested importance for such rural populations. Finally, the scale and nature of pastoral mobility and its occurrence through time also deserve further study before we can relate sanctuaries like Laghetto del Monsignore more firmly to such practices.

Nonetheless, the case study of Laghetto del Monsignore has shown that new insights can be obtained into the diachronic development of sacred landscapes and the changing functions of non-urban sanctuaries by combining topographic contextualisation, detailed material studies and a diachronic consideration of local settlement contexts. This approach has allowed us to develop more focused hypotheses on the changing roles of such sanctuaries in light of the process of urbanisation that Latium Vetus witnessed between the Iron Age and Archaic period. The case shows that current models of sacred landscapes in pre-Roman Italy are not well suited to the study of non-urban sanctuaries with a long history of use, since the currently available static models pose Figure 10. Impasto Bruno vessels from Laghetto del Monsignore

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considerable problems for understanding continuity and change in cult practice. They do not, for example, sufficiently explain the initial rise of such sanctuaries in the Early Iron Age; nor do they deal well with the multiple functions such sanctuaries may have had once processes of urbanisation transformed sacred landscapes. While cult places like Laghetto del Monsignore surely performed functions for urban communities, they may have continued to serve others, such as both local rural communities and non-local groups. The approach advocated here thus clearly underlines the need for dynamic and nuanced models in their study.

Acknowledgments

The first author is grateful to the editors for the opportunity to present part of this research at the workshop Unlocking Sacred Landscapes: Spatial Analysis of Ritual and Cult in the Mediterranean in Dublin. The chapter forms part of the first author’s PhD research, which is funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), grant nr. 322-61-002. A special thanks is reserved for the Soprintendenza per I Beni Archelogici del Lazio and especially inspector

Dr Francesco di Mario, who provided access to the studied collections. Furthermore, the authors would like to thank Professor Peter Attema, Dr Bert Nijboer and Dr Gijs Tol as well as the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter. All errors remain our own.

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