Between Land and Sky—A Study of the Orientation of Roman Centuriations in Italy

Andrea Rodríguez-Antón (), Giulio Magli and Antonio César González-García
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Andrea Rodríguez-Antón: Institute of Heritage Sciences (INCIPIT-CSIC), 15707 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Giulio Magli: Department of Mathematics, Politecnico di Milano, 20133 Milan, Italy
Antonio César González-García: Institute of Heritage Sciences (INCIPIT-CSIC), 15707 Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 4, 1-16

Abstract: The centuriations were public lands delimited and divided in regular lots by Rome as a result of the conquest but also the conceptual appropriation of new territories, which were transformed according to particular ideas of space. Despite previous works rejecting the astronomical hypothesis for the orientation of Roman centuriations, recent publications have supported the role of particular astronomical phenomena in the design of Roman land and urbanism in Italy. The aim of this work is to determine whether the orientation of the centuriations follows any pattern, and to determine the precepts, if any, underlying the election of privileged directions. We present a statistical study of the orientation of 67 centuriations in Italy—the largest sample of this type ever studied in this region—that considers the conditions of the surrounding environment together with a comparative analysis with a dataset of the same type that includes 52 Italian Roman towns. The results show interesting patterns shared by both centuriations and towns, some of them coinciding with relevant astronomical events in the Roman context, together with others in which differentrequirements would have been prioritized. In summary, we should consider the sky as an element involved in the creation of Roman urban and rural spaces.

Keywords: archaeoastronomy; Roman archaeology; Roman urbanism; centuriations; Roman landscape (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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