Rural Sanctuaries in Roman Syria: The Creation of a Sacred Landscape

This examination of the rural sanctuaries of Roman Syria has been arranged as a series of narratives, designed to elicit what the ruins of built environment reveal in the present about ancient populations' engagements with their countryside. Each begins with the sacred site itself before the building was begun. We might imagine that significant building commenced when a local group sought to solidify their relationship with the sacred place. They also set in stone, so to speak, ritual and cult practice. The architectural environment did more than contain ritual, however; it also created a new set of relationships in the surroundings and affected a number of perceptions, such as the manner with which one group saw themselves in relation to the divine. The new attitudes were in turn reacted to, so that new buildings were built and new relationships were created, again and again.