DEpHis (Divine Epithets in Hispania)

Available

 * https://humanidadesdigitales.uc3m.es/s/DEPHis/page/inicio

Scientific coordination

 * Jaime Alvar Ezquerra

Description
Taken from the project website (accessed 2023-08-08):

"The national project ‘Epítetos divinos: Experiencia religiosa y relaciones de poder en Hispania’ (EPIDI) has been led by Jaime Alvar Ezquerra at the University Carlos III of Madrid and funded by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (2018-2020 +1 year, Plan Nacional HAR2017-84789-C2-2-P) within the Instituto de Historiografía Julio Caro Baroja (Madrid). EPIDI aims at broadening the knowledge of the epithets as a specific element of the divinity and as a tool for the construction of the divine by the cultic actors. Epithets are a means of naming and accessing the divine, but at the same time, the gods are modelled through the denominations forged by their devotees. The research intends to explore how, in the Roman religious system, divine epithets changed by virtue of socio-historical and context-dependant articulation that redefined the qualities and potentialities of deities, directly affecting what has in recent years been called 'divine agency'. EPIDI studies the choice of epiclesis or other divine denominations in the epigraphic record and how such choices oscillate between normative regulation and personal experience. This line of research was developed along with the project ‘Lived Ancient Religion in North Africa’ (LARNA) led by Valentino Gasparini (University Carlos III of Madrid, Talent Attraction Program funded by the Autonomous Community of Madrid (2018-2022, 2017-T1/HUM-5709) and elaborated a methodology to analyse the onomastic sequences applied in epigraphy. EPIDI focuses on the epithets evoking power and its relationship with forms of political organization and expressions of dependence in Hispania. As a result of such research, the database “Divine Epithets in Hispania” (DEpHis) gathers all the epigraphic documents (approximately 1300 inscriptions) mentioning divine epithets in Latin, Greek and pre-Roman languages from the Roman provinces of Hispania. DEpHis analyses the divine epithets according to their function and use, geographical location, the social status of the dedicators, and geolocalises, as far as possible, the inscriptions in order to allow an interactive approach."