EQUINOCTIAL MARKERS IN PROTOHISTORIC IBERIAN SANCTUARIES

Abstract

This paper summarizes the most relevant results of a thorough archaeoastronomical study conducted since 1997 in several tens of Iberian archaeological sites, most of them located in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula. We found that a substantial fraction of the sanctuaries studied, all of them dedicated to a feminine goddess, shows a marker of the sunrise or sunset on conspicuous elements of the horizon at the equinoxes or a date very close to it, possibly the temporal midpoint between solstices. This result suggests the existence among the Iberians of rituals associated with seasonality, agrarian festivities of fecundity similar to other well-known ones of the ancient Mediterranean. The earliest chronology of the sanctuaries related to the equinoxes indicates that they became operational around mid-IV BCE, coincident with a period of major ideological changes in the Iberian society and increased Punic influence in the area. The analysis of the results suggests a possible influence of Greco-Punic beliefs on the astronomical aspects of Iberian ritual.