The architecture of early shrines and temples

Abstract

The architectural transformations of the seventh and early sixth centuries, often described as the change from huts to houses, generated a range of building types that some scholars have associated with particular types of religious activities. Some small buildings with one or two rooms have been interpreted as oikos shrines; some buildings with multiple adjacent rooms are thought to have been venues for ritual banquets; and some courtyard complexes have been cast as political sanctuaries or residences where the inhabitants observed familial cults. The archaeological evidence for religious activities associated with any of these building types, however, is not straightforward. The first part of this chapter examines whether it is possible to identify any preferred plan for structures that sheltered and complemented religious rituals during the seventh and early sixth centuries BC. The second part then contrasts this inquiry with the relatively straightforward identification of religious buildings during and after the sixth century BC permitted by the introduction of a distinctive, religious architectural marker, namely podia. As such this chapter explores the emergence of a formal architectural vocabulary for Etrusco-Italic religious buildings and identifies when and where cult buildings became architecturally differentiated from other structures within settlements. Although the architectural changes of the seventh and early sixth centuries BC in Latium and Etruria are not linear or uniform, it is clear that round, oval, and rectangular huts with wattle-and-daub walls and thatched coverings were gradually replaced by rectangular structures with stone foundations and tiled roofs. From the middle of the seventh century plans of the new buildings were regularized to the point where it is possible to identify three main types. The names of these types, however, vary both within and between different scholarly traditions, with the result that a rectangular, tile-roofed building thought to have a religious function can be variously labelled an oikos shrine, a proto-temple, or a temple, and a more elaborate building may be described as a Breithaus, a casa a vani affiancati, a courtyard building, a palazzo, a regia, or an elite residence.