Il prossimo 9 e 10 settembre 2024 il direttore della Missione Archeologica Italo-Albanese (Sapienza - Istituto Archeologico Albanese) Julian Bogdani insieme a Francesca D'Ambola parteciperanno al convegno internazionale “Culti e rituali in grotta: forme e materiali dal Mediterraneo tardoantico" organizzato presso la Sapienza Università di Roma, con un intervento dal titolo “Praying at the edge: liminal cults and ritual practices in northern Epirus”
Abstract: Epirus has been perceived for a long time as a peripheral region to the Greek world, located on its northwestern edge and on the border between Hellenikòn and Barbarikòn. The Mainland, a necessary stop for sailors along the route to the West, stretches from the Ionian coast to the remote mountainous areas of the inland and represents a liminal landscape not only geographically but also culturally. It is home to some of the oldest and most ancestral sanctuaries of Greek antiquity, such as Dodona between the mountains of Molossia and the necromantic sanctuary at the mouth of the Acheron river. The scarce inclination to monumental architecture characteristic of both those sanctuaries, well exemplifies this area’s predilection for places apt to awaken an atavistic religious sensibility, preferring the mountain, the cave, the river to the built spaces of the polis and the oikos. Our paper will attempt to offer an archaeological overview of sacred spaces and ritual practices in liminal places in Epirus, focusing on the case study of Cestrine, the coastal area facing Corcyra. Here Pan and the Nymphs are the temporary protagonists of a long-lasting religious tradition linked to caves, springs and streams, where the rural and pastoral reality is intertwined with mythical imagery to the point that the death of the 'Great Pan' is situated, through Plutarch's account (Plut. De Defect. 17), in these places. Within a wider framework, we will finally try to investigate the link between ritual practices and natural elements as a potential manifestation of the willingness to define cult activities and pursue symbolic significance outside the realm of the urban centres and of polis-religion.