Professor makes monumental discovery in Italy

Dr. Douglas Boyne, professor of history at Saint Louis University, gave an important presentation at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, announcing that he and his team discovered an ancient Roman temple that adds important insights into social change. revealed that he had done so. From pagan gods within the Roman Empire to Christianity.

“We discovered three walls of a monumental structure that suggest they belong to a Roman temple dating back to the time of Emperor Constantine,” Boyne said.

“It dates from the 4th century AD and will be an amazing addition to the landscape of this corner of Italy. This site will greatly aid our understanding of ancient cities, ancient towns and urban societies of the late Roman Empire. , because it shows that “the continuity between the classical pagan world and the early Christian Roman world can be blurred or written out of the overarching historical narrative.” It happens often. ”

Boyne and his excavation team made this monumental discovery over the summer. Boyne, an expert on ancient Rome and its religious evolution, is conducting excavations in the famous medieval hilltop town of Spello, about 20 minutes from Assisi and two and a half hours north of Rome. Ta. Boyne chose this town based on the edicts of Emperor Constantine in his 4th century letter to the townspeople regarding religious holidays.

Discovered in the 18th century, this edict allowed the people of Spello to celebrate religious festivals in their homeland rather than traveling far for different festivals. However, in order to do so, the town was told that it needed to build a temple to the Flavian family, the sacred ancestors of Emperor Constantine, to worship them and show how multicultural Roman society was at the time.

“There was a remarkable religious continuity between the Roman world and early Christendom,” Boyne said.

“The situation did not change overnight. Until our discovery, there was no sense that physical religious remains associated with this late ‘act of imperial worship’ actually existed.” But , with its inscriptions and references to temples, Spello offers the very interesting possibility of a large-scale discovery of imperial worship practiced under Christian rulers. ”

Boyne traveled to Spello to supervise underground imaging to determine if there were potential ruins that needed to be discovered beneath the surface. Weeks later, almost by chance, Boyne finally received a promising image of the area beneath the parking lot where the temple is believed to be.

The team dug very carefully into the ground and found two adjacent walls. Further excavation unearthed what Boyne believes to be the inner walls of the temple. The temple soon became what Boyne calls the greatest evidence in history of imperial worship in both fourth-century Italy and the late Roman Empire.

“There is evidence from other parts of the Roman world that Christian rulers supported cult practices in their empire,” Boyne said.

“Although it was known that pagans worshiped in temples in the fourth century, the discoveries were small and insignificant, and that Christians supported imperial worship. I knew and I had no idea where it was. It would have happened.”

“This temple bridges these two landmarks, and in that it is unlike any other temple in the Mediterranean world of the 4th century Roman Empire that I know of.The study of imperial worship in the 4th century Roman Empire It is an incredible discovery to consider this temple in the future.”

This discovery allowed Boyne to show how slowly social change was occurring at the time. Although Constantine was famously the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, it took nearly 70 years for Christianity to become the official religion of the Roman Empire under Emperor Theodosius. Meanwhile, many convincing gradual changes were still required for people who worshiped pagan gods to convert to Christianity.

“This changes everything about how we perceive the pace of social change and our impressions of the impact of social and cultural change,” Boyne said.

“This building shows, in its own very radical way, the staying power of a pagan tradition that had been in the land for centuries before the rise of Christianity, and how the Roman emperors It shows how the emperors and the empire continued to negotiate their own negotiations, without destroying or burying the past, their values, their own hopes and dreams for the future of the emperor and the empire.”

Boyne and his team plan to return to Spello next summer to fully excavate the area and investigate the entire temple, where they hope to make further important discoveries.

“We’re on the verge of providing people with very tangible evidence that upends the way they think about big moments of cultural change,” Boyne said.

“Cultural change is not as great as we think we are actually experiencing it, and there are many gray areas between people’s habits and broader society and culture. and many of them may be left out of the story, as the temple was dedicated to Constantine’s sacred ancestors as a means of worshiping the emperor in the increasingly Christianized world of the time. “It’s very strange that this could be a temple built in ancient times, and I’m very happy to be able to bring this issue to light.”