Valentino Gasparini gives a working paper on 'Carving the Rocky Memory Lane. The Visit of Senator G. C. Calpurnius Rufinus to Panóias (Vila Real, Portugal)'

The sanctuary of Panóias, currently located near Vila Real in northern Portugal, plays an undoubtedly unique role in the scenario of the Isiac cults of the Western Roman Empire. Its extraordinary importance (which makes it one of the most cited Portuguese archaeological sites) basically lies in the anomalous features of the complex. This is a pre-Roman rock sanctuary which was later experienced, converted into a Serapeum and adapted to specific mystery requirements during the 3rd century CE, on the occasion of the visit of senator G. C. Calpurnius Rufinus. The intervention of the senator (whose eastern origin – maybe from Pamphylia – seems betrayed by some linguistic details in Doric Greek) consisted in the creation of what Géza Alföldy reconstructed as an actual initiatory path, implemented through specific ritual actions (sacrifices, libations, etc.) performed at certain installations (temples, stairs, basins, altars, circular cavities, vestigia, etc.). The various stages of the itinerary were marked by several carved rocks, two of which originally engraved with five inscriptions (CIL II 2395a-e). A new recent interpretation of the four preserved tituli (Correia Santos, Pires & Sousa 2014), based on the use of the Morphological Residual Model (MRM), has significantly improved their reading and enhanced the understanding of the Isiac features of the installation. This paper aims to explore, both from an archaeological and epigraphic perspective, the strategies through which G. C. Calpurnius Rufinus negotiated between already existing (pre-Roman) ritual patterns and new (Graeco-Roman) forms of communication, in order to individually appropriate, re- (or better over-) sacralise and memorialise the local rocky space.