Cults in Africa Proconsularis: rituals as an expression of independence and integration

Third-party funding from the DFG as part of the priority program 'Roman Imperial Religion and Provincial Religion' (completed)

The research project will focus on the relationship between provincial religion and imperial religion in the Roman province of Africa proconsularis. Specifically, the following questions will be investigated:   

• The spread of urban Roman rituals in the province, differentiated according to the different legal status of the settlements (colonia, municipium, settlement under peregrine law)   
• The survival of indigenous religious practices in the practice of religion
• implementation of iconographic models in cult iconography from the center to the African periphery   
• different modes of representation of rituals as an expression of differentiated representational needs in provincial society
• integration potential of specific cults for the provincial area, e.g. in the imperial cult
• Religion and religious iconography as a sign of indigenous resistance (?)
• Separation of Roman-influenced official cults in the public sphere and indigenous cults in the private sphere.

The results of both research projects on Asia Minor and North Africa will be presented in a monograph once the work has been completed.

Univ. Prof. Dr. Günther Schörner (Guenther.Schoerner@univie.ac.at)