Material Culture and Imagined Communities in the Roman World

Abstract

This chapter argues and illustrates that material culture plays a pivotal role in creating and stimulating religious experience and must therefore be considered a powerful tool in the construction of communities. It explores how material culture was able to create and stimulate the feeling of belonging to a specific group by focusing on concepts like “imagined communities”, “symbolic construction” and “communion”. As a case study the authors have selected the Roman cults of Isis. The chapter outlines a theoretical framework that, beyond the tradition of Durkheim, focuses on the imaginative aspect of communities and has material culture as an active constituent in that process. It also presents the concept of communion as being important in that respect. Finally, the chapter applies this approach and discusses several sanctuaries for the Roman cult of Isis and the Egyptian gods in terms of group dynamics.

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