Archeologia e Topografia del sogno rituale dall’Arcaismo alla Tarda Antichità nel mondo Greco-Romano

Abstract

The goal of the thesis is an analysis of the evolution of the cognitive and ritual devices related to dreams and visions in different cultic contexts – from the hero cult in ancient Greece, to those of epiphanic and healing deities during Antiquity, to that of the Christian saints in Late Antiquity – with the aim of tracing the diachronic change of the cultural functions of vision in relation to the construction of the identity of the communities here analysed. The research presents two complementary levels: that of religious history and anthropology concerning the development of the ritual devices, and that of archaeology and topography concerning the evolution of the ritual patterns and of the topographical relationship between the spaces devoted to ritual dreaming and the other areas of the cities. We therefore tried to outline a material history of the role of visions in relation to the construction and evolution of the cultural memory and its materialization in space.