Religious Glocalization in Western Sardinia: Assessing Change in Agrarian Cult Practices and Landscapes, ca. 500 BCE to 300 CE

Author(s): Kathryn Breyer

Year: 2025

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

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Local responses, cultural connectivity, and material entanglement have been key subjects in Sardinian archaeology since van Dommelen’s work in the 1990s. Following the glocalization approach outlined by Roudometof, this paper foregrounds the adoption and integration of the cult of Demeter in Sardinia by locals and outsiders alike. Introduced to the island by the Carthaginians in the late 4<sup>th</sup> - early 3<sup>rd</sup> centuries BCE, the cult of Demeter re-uses Bronze Age architecture and incorporates Punic and Roman inspired cult objects. Analysis of the entangled archaeological contexts in which the Punic and Roman cult objects were found is discussed and subsequently compared to other representations and practices of this cult found throughout the western Mediterranean. Likewise, the longue durée of cultic landscape of Sardinia is considered. Ultimately, the author argues for the relevance of glocalization and its resulting glocality to not only the study of religious and landscape transformations in Sardinia and the wider Roman world but also its relevance to other societies throughout antiquity and into the present.

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Cite this Record

Religious Glocalization in Western Sardinia: Assessing Change in Agrarian Cult Practices and Landscapes, ca. 500 BCE to 300 CE. Kathryn Breyer. Presented at The 90th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. 2025 ( tDAR id: 510840)

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Keywords

General
Colonialism • Mediterranean • Ritual and Symbolism

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52747