Golosetti Raphaël

Europe contributes actively to the development of sacred landscape studies by a large research network. French, Belgian, Dutch, Italian, Swiss, German researchers participate to this work in progress, illustrated by recent conferences and publications. The project is only a part of a larger project and must be understood as a step for this research field which is in its beginning. The sacred landscape research needs to be advanced through the integration of complementary studies on different geographical areas. The aim of the project is to combine the knowledge and research topics of the applicant and the great experience, studies tradition and research of the host institution in order to develop a new approach of sacred landscape (with the introducing of memorial reading of space) and a new area of study (Southern and Northern Gaul). This project aims to understand the process of the implantation of cultic places in natural and anthropogenic space in Gaul and their different sorts of relationships taking into consideration the ancient perception of landscape. For this purpose, I shall combine several complementary disciplines (epigraphy, iconography and archeology), using conventional (database, archaeological excavations) and relatively new approaches (3D-modeling). The concept of memorial geosymbols (places of memory) will be central in order to understand the role of the symbolic reading of landscape and the historical reading of space in the localisation of these sanctuaries. Starting from an inventory of the city deities and an investigation of the sanctuaries founded on abandoned Iron Age settlements, this study hopes to advance our comprehension of the role of religion and cultic places in the politogenesis in Gaul.