Four Rare and Unusual Dedications From Areas of Viminacium and Nais

Abstract

In the areas of Viminacium and Nais four rare and unusual votive dedications were identified. These are the dedications Deus Aeternus, Dii Angeli, Hero (Viminacium), and Atta (Naissus). The dedications Deus Aeternus and Dii Angeli may perhaps indicate Christianity, while the dedications Hero and Atta may indicate settlers of Greek origin. The dedication to goddess Atta could have been made by a freed man, since her cult was to an extent related to the cult of Heracles who, thanks to his loyal service to Omphale, where he was to repent his sins, was freed from slavery, and thus was also a protector of freed man. Main methodological approach in this paper is the analysis of cults as well as their backgrounds as conditions for their realisation. Until now for the territory of Serbia there was not corpus of analyzing cults. There is only corpus of grave and votive monuments for the territory of Serbia with very rare and sporadic comments of cult. So, the main topic of this article is analyzing of cults. It includes the main meaning of the cult, dateing of monuments and historical and archeological backgrounds of the cults. At the same time it was the main method in the analyzing of the mentioned votive monuments. By this method as the result appeared the dateing of the monuments and improvement of existing Greek settlers. At the same time there were the main research questions which should be ensolved. For ensolved the dateing of the monuments was used the system of analyzing syllabic formulae and for the improvement of existing Greek settlers the method of “healty mind” and connections of analogies. As a result the dateing of monuments of Deus Aeternus, Dii Angeli, and Hero was early 2-nd century, and for Atta from the beginning of 2-nd to the end of 3-rd century.