Gosbecks Romano-Celtic Temple
About
Gosbecks' temple sat inside a monumental covered portico roughly 100 meters square, wrapped around a small cella barely 13.5 meters on a side, on ground that had served as a religious center for local Britons for a century before the Roman conquest. Excavation dates the grand stone-built portico to the mid-2nd century CE, roughly a generation after Trajan's death, so the temple in its known monumental form was not yet complete in 117 CE. Its outline, like the neighboring theatre's, is marked out in the grass of Gosbecks Archaeological Park today.
What happened here
The building itself is a house for the god, and most people never go inside. Everything public happens on the steps and at the altar in front: an animal led up, examined, killed cleanly, its organs read, the meat divided and eaten. The priest covers his head and a flute player keeps up a noise so no ill-omened word is heard. Worshippers leave what they can afford — a terracotta figure, a coin, a model of the body part they want healed — and the accumulated clutter is periodically cleared and buried on site. On festival days the doors are opened and the cult statue is dressed, garlanded, and sometimes carried out through the streets. The temple also holds money, which is why towns keep their treasury in one.
Sources
Nearby
%20(16704064685).jpg?width=800)
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →