The sanctuaries of Velia on the ridge

This project is concerned with the exploration of the sanctuaries of Elea/Velia in Southern Italy, a Greek colony founded by the important East-Greek city of Phocaia in the second half of the 6th c. BC. Though archaeological research at Elea began already in the last years of the 19th century, the sanctuaries have not been studied systematically until now. This may be partly due to the fact that, apart from the temple on the acropolis, most of them are not monumental, consisting of courtyards with porticos or open areas surrounded with temenos-walls, in the center of which we find altars and bases for steles and statues. The project will take into consideration those sanctuaries lying along the ridge, separating the town in a Northern and a Southern part and fortified by a sector of the town-walls, called sector A, where most of the known steles with inscriptions, bearing names of gods, have been found. During the last two years this area has become the focus of attention of our research as the developing- program for the archaeological park of Velia provides a new route for visitors along the ridge, that makes extensive measures of conservation and works on the infrastructure necessary. The Austrian team has been entrusted with the archaeological research of that area during the years 2004 and 2005, concentrating on the study of the fortifications. At the same time, we were able to extend our studies to some of the sanctuaries lying adiacent to the wall and we could identify some new cult-places enlargening the number of the known sanctuaries to eight. It turned out, that most of them belong to the 4th to the 2nd c. BC and therefore allow us new insights into a period that is determined by the continous struggle between Greeks and Lucanians as well as the Roman conquest of South-Italy. The aim of the present project is to study and publish the results of the last two years concerning architecture, stratigraphy and the small-finds, among them some fine pieces of terracotta-statuettes and miniature vessels presented to the gods as offerings. At some of the cult-places it will be necessary to accomplish the existing documentation of groundplans and to conduct additional excavations in order to solve problems of the cult- topography and of the chronology of some of the shrines. This concerns the big terrace between the towers A 5 and A 6, conventionally brought in connection with the god Zeus because of dedications-inscriptions. Another important place will be the area of a small naiskos that has been dated to the late 6th c. BC and interpreted as a shrine for the goddess Kybele.

Main goal of the project has been the study of the hitherto only badly known sanctuaries on the central ridge of Velia, a Greek colony in Southern Italy. By surveying and measuring the entire ridge as well as by archaeological investigations we were able to follow the development of these sanctuaries from the late-arcaic beginnings of the town until the period of the early Roman Empire. The earliest sanctuaries were concentrated on the ancient acropolis and the neighbouring hill in the Western part of the town, but the sensational find of a late-arcaic relief- shrine, showing a goddess on a throne, made clear that also the western part had been used as sacred space in that time. The first architectonic structures were erected in the late 5th and in the 4th c. BD, represented by simple porticos and square-formed cultbuildings, yet it remains difficult to narrow the dating range, due to the lack of diagnostic finds. In that period some non-iconic stelai had been erected, showing dedications for specific deities so that we can link the sanctuaries to gods like Hera, Poseidon or Zeus. An outstandig example is the cult-area no. 4 with a minimum of ten small shrines that find their closest parallels in the context of the indigenous population in the hinterland, the Lucanians. This - like the square form of some of the cultbuildings - led to the consideration of intercultural contacts between Velia and the Lucanians, though their intensity remains unknown, yet. It cannot be excluded that these contacts had a political dimension as well, as it is known from other towns in Southern Italy, like for example from Naples. The 3rd c. BC saw the growing of sanctuaries characterized by the architectonic elements of porticoes and small cult installations. Temples remain few and their typology points to Roman influence, growing dominante with the Roman expansion to Southern Italy at the beginning of the 3rd c. BC. A similar development could be observed also in architecture outside the sanctuaries, e. g. for Velia`s best known monument, the so-called Porta Rosa, but also for pottery where in the 3rd c. BC imports from Roman-influenced regions like the gulf of Naples took the place of regional products. So the study of the sancturaies could also contribute considerably to our knowledge of the process of Romanization in Southern Italy.