Project « Domestic deities in the Roman Empire »

Mariemont’s Roman antiquities collection includes a large number of bronze statuettes of deities. Spread over all four corners of the Empire, these objects could be found in small private temples in Roman homes. 

The aim of this project is to study these religious figurines, identifying parallel objects whose date and origin have both been clearly identified. This enables us to recontextualise the pieces of the collection with no known provenance, to retrace their journey through the Roman world and to explore the practices and gestures of Roman domestic worship.