Santuarios y poder ideológico en el Sureste ibérico peninsular (siglos IV-III a.C.): paisajes, ceremonias y símbolos

Abstract

The dynamic of the Late Iron Age during last centuries before the Roman expansion was defined in Western Europe and in the Mediterranean area by an increasing social complexity, which led to the consolidation of the socio-political elites. Although this process presented different patterns in every regional area, the ideology was a common key tool during this period and it was used by the elite in order to reinforce its position within the community. The use of ideology promoted by the elite is visible in the most different aspects of the life of those communities, such as their necropolis, their pottery and, especially, their cult places. All of them were spaces where that ideology was ‘materialised’ and where it became visible to the entire community. In the case of the Iberian Peninsula, both the importance of the ideology for the elites and their interest in materialising it are clearly illustrated through the iconographic programs developed in different peninsular sites, such as those of San Miguel de Liria (Valencia), Porcuna and El Pajarillo (Jaen). Research developed in diverse Mediterranean and European areas has demonstrated the special significance of cult places as spaces of social representation during the pre-roman period, presenting them as ideal sites to analyse that materialisation of the ideology linked to the elites. These works offer, along with the anthropological studies, an interesting comparative view to analyse the cult places in the Iberian Peninsula and, particularly, in the Iberian Southeast. This is the study area of this paper which focuses on the analysis of these sites in the current area of Murcia between the 4th-3rd centuries BC, as spaces where the materialisation of the ideology by the local elites is more easily visible through the archaeological record. The paper pays close attention to those cult places directly linked to the main settlements (oppida) where these local elites resided. The study area presents a double interest. Firstly, it lacks analyses which approach from this perspective all these regional cult places as a whole. Secondly, some of the most important peninsular cult places are located here, such as El Cigarralejo (Mula), La Encarnacion (Caravaca), La Luz (Verdolay) and Coimbra del Barranco Ancho (Jumilla). They offer a wide amount of archaeological information which becomes especially useful for the proposal approach. Anthropological studies have defined three main dimensions where ideology is usually materialised within a society and all of them are presented in the study area: landscape (monuments, symbolic and strategic locations, architecture), symbolic objects (imported products, images, iconography) and ceremonies (offerings, presence of priests, etc.). The archaeological record of the regional sanctuaries, along with their topographical location in the territory and their links with the main oppida, illustrates really well the presence of all these dimensions in the analysed territory and presents a more integrated picture of the regional cult places within the process of geopolitical consolidation of the elites which defined both the Europe of the Late Iron Age and the Iberian Peninsula in the previous centuries to the Roman arrival.