A Reflection on African Religious Life Through the 21 Conferences of "L'Africa Romana” (1983-2020)

Abstract

The international conferences of “L’Africa romana”, organized by the University of Sassari since 1983, are the most important events of the last forty years, regarding the history, archaeology and epigraphy of North Africa; they have given the opportunity to well-established and young scholars alike, from dozens of countries, to compare their experience and knowledge. The result is a new vision of the Roman provinces of Africa, due to the presentation of a considerable amount of unpublished material. The African provinces, although included in the Mediterranean koine, have been regarded in their specific characteristics, paying due attention to the essential local religious strata, to the internal and external non-religious aspects of the cult and to the original merging of said elements in the religious life between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of the Great Sirte. Ever since the first conferences it was decided to overcome the ethnocentric view, remnant of the colonial past, and underline how in the African provinces local and imported divinities have come together. The present contribution proposes a first annotated bibliographic overview of the works that involved Universities, Research Centers, Agencies for the Development Heritage and Scientific Societies who carried out international research by comparing methods and going beyond a traditional view that was incapable of understanding the ancient world in depth.