Digital Approaches to Sacred Space in Roman Britain (London, Tuesday 19th May 2026)

[Gabriel Bodard]

Tuesday 19th May 2026

Institute of Classical Studies, Senate House, University of London

Register in-person or online: https://ics.sas.ac.uk/news-events/events/digital-approaches-sacred-space-roman-britain

Temples and shrines in Roman Britain have been examined since the early modern period, primarily for their architecture and monumental form. Early studies focused on plans, typologies, and building techniques, establishing categories that continue to guide our interpretation. In recent decades, scholarship has expanded to situate these sites within their local and regional landscapes, exploring their connections to roads, settlements, villas. Attention has also shifted toward the material culture associated with these sacred spaces—votive deposits, inscriptions and ritual objects—emphasizing the practices and communities that produced them. More recently, digital approaches have begun to transform the study of Roman sacred space, offering new ways to visualize, connect and analyze archaeological evidence.

This one-day workshop will explore how digital tools and methods help change the way we study and analyse temples and shrines in Roman Britain. By integrating GIS-based spatial analysis, 3D modeling and Linked Open Data infrastructures, the event examines how researchers are using new digital techniques to cast a new analytical lens on sacred sites, but also their material culture and landscape. By doing so, it demonstrates how emerging technologies create new opportunities to test existing interpretations, question established models, and formulate new hypotheses about sacred space in Roman Britain.

Programme:

10:00-10:30 Coffee and registration 

10:30-10:45 Welcome remarks   

10:45-11:15 Fragmented Data and New Networks in the Study of Roman Religion, Alessandra Esposito & Francesca Mazzilli

11:15-11:45 Mapping Sacred Spaces in Roman Britain: A New Corpus on Wikidata, Maxime Guénette

11:45-12:15 RomAniDat and the Pandora platform: using spatial modelling software for analysing animal bone data from temple sites, Tony King, Dominika Schmidtova, Ricardo Fernandes 

12:15-12:30 Discussion

12:30-14:00 Lunch

14:00:14:30 Digital approaches to space and excavation at the Roman shrine landscape of Teffont, Wiltshire, UK, David Robert

14:30-15:00 Spectres of the Past: Haunting, Uncertainty, and Space for Digital Imaginaries, Anna Collar

15:00-15:30 Integrating landscape-scale prospection, high-definition 3D GPR and targeted excavation at a newly discovered Romano-Celtic temple in Somerset, Jodie Lewis, Michael Pisz

15:30-16:00 Coffee      

16:00-16:30 Identifying sacred sites in the rural landscape, Stephen Clifton

16:30-17:00 Londinium AD 215: imagining urban sacred space in Virtual Reality, Dominic Perring, Jake Nixon

17:00-17:30 Closing remarks and discussion