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9 - The Religious Landscape

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2010

Hamish Forbes
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
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Summary

‘1685, 5th of December, day Wednesday. I, the priest [name illegible] I worshipped Saint George’ Signature:? Stamatis (Koukoulis 1997b, 222).

(Graffito by the head of a painting of Saint George in a Methana church)

This chapter examines the religious landscape and its meanings for Methanites. That landscape primarily involves Methana but also to a lesser extent the areas of the adjacent mainland and increasingly, areas of Greece further away. The religious landscape consisted primarily of more than three dozen churches that Methanites encountered. Although not evenly spaced across the landscape, they amounted to more than one church for every two square kilometres (fig. 9.1). Although all ‘proper’ communities had one or more churches, over the centuries a number of ‘extra-mural’ churches have been built on Methana, as elsewhere in Greece, as an act of devotion, well away from any settlement. In most cases, the reasons for their initial construction have been forgotten, yet the churches have remained in use. In addition, because of the tradition of building and venerating extra-mural churches, even where settlements have been abandoned, the churches have not usually been allowed to decay, remaining as a meaningful spiritual focus integrated within the landscape. For Methanites, the religious landscape has been in some ways the most enduring of all the peninsula's aspects. In the 1990s, the importance of locales throughout the peninsula where religious buildings existed has been re-emphasised at a time when the focus on the rest of the landscape as a means of making a living is rapidly fading.

Type
Chapter
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Meaning and Identity in a Greek Landscape
An Archaeological Ethnography
, pp. 343 - 394
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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  • The Religious Landscape
  • Hamish Forbes, University of Nottingham
  • Book: Meaning and Identity in a Greek Landscape
  • Online publication: 04 May 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511720284.011
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  • The Religious Landscape
  • Hamish Forbes, University of Nottingham
  • Book: Meaning and Identity in a Greek Landscape
  • Online publication: 04 May 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511720284.011
Available formats
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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.

  • The Religious Landscape
  • Hamish Forbes, University of Nottingham
  • Book: Meaning and Identity in a Greek Landscape
  • Online publication: 04 May 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511720284.011
Available formats
×