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5 - Water from the Earth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2020

Eleri H. Cousins
Affiliation:
Lancaster University
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Summary

This chapter turns to our evidence for ritual practice at the site, in particular activity centred on the three hot springs. Rather than being curative in nature, the water is understood as primarily a medium for enabling ritual relinquishment of objects lost through theft or decay. The chthonic importance of the water is emphasized and linked to other aspects of ritual at the site, in particular reports from the ancient author Solinus that coal was burned on Sulis’s altars. Depositional practice at Aquae Sulis is compared to other watery sites in Britain and Gaul, and the Bath corpus of ‘curse tablets’ is placed into a wider context, with the sanctuary at Uley serving as a particularly important counterpoint to Bath.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Water from the Earth
  • Eleri H. Cousins, Lancaster University
  • Book: The Sanctuary at Bath in the Roman Empire
  • Online publication: 07 January 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108694735.005
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  • Water from the Earth
  • Eleri H. Cousins, Lancaster University
  • Book: The Sanctuary at Bath in the Roman Empire
  • Online publication: 07 January 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108694735.005
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Water from the Earth
  • Eleri H. Cousins, Lancaster University
  • Book: The Sanctuary at Bath in the Roman Empire
  • Online publication: 07 January 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108694735.005
Available formats
×