| Paper 605-b | Contested Ground: Catholic and Arian Competition for Sacred Spaces in Visigothic Spain and the Problem of Indistinguishable Materialities
(Language: English)
Reed Morgan, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge / Department of History, Harvard University
Index terms: Archaeology - General, Architecture - Religious, Ecclesiastical History |
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| Abstract | Paper -a:
It presents an important rupestrian group - unpublished until now - made up of more than one hundred hermitages located in the interior of the Iberian Peninsula. They are linked to the arrival and installation of a monastic community of seventy monks headed by Abbot Donato at the end of the 5th century, coming from North Africa and arriving in Spain fleeing the Vandals. This fact is known thanks to Saint Ildefonso, which also highlights the eremitical formation of the religious Cuiusdam eremitae fertur in Africa extitisse discipulus. The hermitages discovered are concentrated in a specific area located in the NE of the province of Cuenca (Spain). This area counts on a great archaeological diversity, with evidences in all the chronological periods. Nevertheless the works of investigation are scarce and focused in Roman time. The evidence of rock building have gone unnoticed by scholars.
Paper -b:
The narrative history of Visigothic Iberia has a complex historiographic relationship with the inherited dualities that have framed much of its discourse, particularly around questions of identity: Roman/Germanic, Sacred/Secular, Catholic/Arian. The past few decades of research have served to blur the distinctions between these categories, especially with respect to ethnic affiliations. Religious boundaries were similarly flexible: Roman inhabitants could be Arians and Goths could be Catholics, even before their conversion under Reccared. Archaeological attempts to identify distinct Arian and Catholic material cultures have been resoundingly unsuccessful. And yet, at the same time, the textual sources make clear the political conflicts that existed between the parallel churches in the 6th century, as seen in the Vitas Patrum Emeritensium. This paper examines the textual evidence for competition over sacred spaces and objects in Late Antique Spain, presents initial possibilities for a theoretical approach to differing Arian and Catholic interactions with religious materiality, and provides an account of why such politically and religiously significant conflict can be archaeologically invisible.
Paper -c:
Spain has become one of the top global tourist destinations, in part because of its many attractions. It boasts a rich and abundant historical and archaeological heritage and the excellent quality of these cultural resources have clearly helped to make the country an international cultural destination. Some studies have shown that cultural and archaeological resources enhance the tourism experience, making cultural attractions a development option for many tourist destinations. Within this research line, our work focuses on the tourism importance of a particular Medieval archaeological site, namely, Segóbriga Archaeological Park (in the province of Cuenca, Spain).
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