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Chapter 1 - Remembering the Rites: Religious Learning Network Model and Transmission of Religious Rituals in the Worship of Nutrices Augustae (Poetovio, Pannonia Superior)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2024

Blanka Misic
Affiliation:
Champlain College, Lennoxville
Abigail Graham
Affiliation:
Institute of Classical Studies, London
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Summary

This chapter explores how religious knowledge, including rituals, was learned and transmitted by putting forward a novel, cognitive-based, theoretical framework for analysing ritual practices in the Graeco-Roman world. This framework, termed the Religious Learning Network (RLN) theoretical model, is tested within a case study of archaeological and epigraphic evidence of Nutrices Augustae, a cult of local Pannonian healing mother-goddesses. Applying the Religious Learning Network model provides an insight into the types of rituals that may have taken place within this cult as well as the cognitive and social effects that these rituals may have produced upon the ritual participants. This chapter demonstrates that rituals were learned and transmitted within intimate circles through cult members’ interaction with objects, places, and events; forming a dynamic network of memory associations that helped in the encoding, storage, and retrieval of religious and ritual memories.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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