Isiac cults

The cemetery of Qasr ‘Allam (oasis of Bahariya, Egypt, end of the Late Period / Beginning of Ptolemaic Period) contains collective burials where the funeral space is occupied simultaneously by dead people and animals. The fact that some human and animal bodies are regularly burden together is susceptible to question the intuitive reading which would tend to interpret animal remains as offerings or artifacts accompanying the human deceased. In order to solve the question of the ritual status of animal deposits when animal skeletons are anatomicallycomplete, this paper combines taphonomical, osteological and philological analyses to interpret some strange gestures of the gravediggers. By studying a textual corpus from the Old Kingdom to the Ptolemaic Period (hieroglyphic epigraphy, Greek and demotic papyrology) and thanks to recent archaeological data considered with a multidisciplinary approach, we revise some traditional typologies that seemed well established in the field of Egyptology. While comparing the emic and etic point of view of the various combined sciences, the conclusion builds an hypothesis to interpret the ritual gestures occurring in Qasr ‘Allam and on some sites of the Nile valley.

The discovery in Parque Arqueológico del Molinete (Insula II), Cartagena (Murcia, Spain; Hispania citerior) of a sanctuary to Isis and Serapis is one of the most significant archaeological events for the city in the last quarter century. The building was discovered between 2009 and 2017, and its now ‘dead’ materials can provide a large volume of information about the Isiac religion lived and felt by the city’s inhabitants, nearly 2000 years ago. It is, therefore, an important discovery at several levels.
First, for its contribution to our knowledge about the history and sacred topography of the Roman colony of Carthago Nova between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD. The new sanctuary, whose temenos is almost completely preserved, provides further data with which to reconstruct the urban layout of the central sector of the colony, at the foot of the acropolis, between the harbour and the colonial forum, as well as presenting us with information about the cults introduced in the city by the gens isiaca in the opening decades of the 1st century AD; the chronology of the sanctuary, in the Flavian period, frames it within Vespasian’s promotion of the Isiac cult, which was to undergo what L. Bricault has labelled as a new wave of Mediterranean ‘penetration’. The sanctuary also allows for the exploration of the role played by the Isiac religion, which may have been made an official cult at this stage, and its brethren in the history of the colony during the early imperial period. Finally, the transformations undergone by the sanctuary between the 3rd and 7th centuries AD will provide valuable information about the urban, social and economic dynamics undergone by the city during Late Antiquity.
Second, the new sanctuary dramatically increases our knowledge about Nilotic cults in Hispania; the only Isiac sanctuaries known to date are located in Emporiae, Baelo Claudia, Italica and, perhaps, Panóias.
Third, its good state of preservation has allowed, following the standard criteria developed for Insula I, Parque Arqueológico del Molinete, to undertake conservation, restoration and musealisation works, turning the remains into a powerful resource with which to continue contributing to Cartagena’s cultural and touristic projects.
After the excavation and musealisation of the sanctuary came to an end in July 2017, and after the initial analysis of the results, this volume presents the sanctuary, its most prominent historical and archaeological features, and the conservation and restoration works undertaken, to the scientific community and the general public. The volume, therefore, is the expression of our commitment to archaeology and the management of archaeological heritage. It is divided into several sections. The two opening chapters introduce the cults of Isis and Serapis and the everyday routines of an Isiac sanctuary, as well as the role played by oriental and Alexandrine religions in Carthago Nova. The central section examines the sanctuary from the perspective of sacred spaces, as well as the urban, architectural and functional transformations undergone by the complex between the 3rd and 7th centuries. The final section focuses on the conservation and restoration works and on the various activities undertaken for the presentation of the sanctuary to the public. Some chapters (especially Chapter III), include a Catalogue with the finds that form the basis of archaeological interpretation.