Durovigutum Roman Godmanchester

Abstract

brings the study of ancient provincial religion within more over-arching approaches to Roman history and archaeology of their provincial territories. As mentioned above, Miranda Aldhouse-Green’s focus is on deities, depiction, objects, etc. The book has less emphasis on temple architecture and topography, though there is an acknowledgement of the importance of the landscape setting of individual sites. However, there are no site plans or maps, except one (p. 10) showing a now rather out-of-date version of the territories of pre-Roman peoples in southern Britain. It would have been good to include a distribution map of temples, for instance, or some of the many excellent site plans of shrines and their surrounding buildings. A surprising omission is the now well-studied and important sanctuary of Springhead in Kent, which has much new material deserving of wider publication in a survey such as this. That said, in terms of approach and the author’s deep understanding of her subject, Sacred Britannia gives us a very good overview of religion in the province of Britain, and will become, I am sure, a standard work.