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[German version] I. General The word 'sanctuary' is derived, like the French sanctuaire, Italian santuario, etc., from the Latin sanctus ('set off'). On the other hand, the German collective term for a wide variety of types of cult places, Heiligtum, traces back to the Germanic adjective * heila-, * heilu- ('whole', 'complete') [1. 78]. In 20th-cent. German-language scholarship of religion, the German term eventually came to be used synonymously with the above-mentioned terms derived from sanctus. This is connected with, among other things, the archaeological and lite…

I. Ancient Orient [German version] A. General comments In the Near East, idols which functioned as cult images (CI) could be found in central temples, peripheral sanctuaries, private houses, and sometimes on open-air sanctuaries and cult alcoves. Their material consistency, appearance, and size varied depending on their origin and the context of their use. Berlejung, Angelika (Heidelberg) [German version] B. Egypt CI of gods already existed in earliest times. They could be anthropomorphic (anthr.), theriomorphous, or of mixed shape, and were created as in…

[German version] (plural Nutrices). Latin name of female deities who, as wetnurses, were nurturers and protectors of divine or human children. Three areas can be distinguished: (1) in myth, e.g. as a nurse of Jupiter (Amaltheia [1], Ov. Fast. 5,127), also metonymically as ‘nurturing mother earth’ (Hor. Carm. 1,22); (2) in the cult in and around Poetovio, where two shrines and numerous reliefs and inscriptions consecrated to the Nutrices Augustae were found [1]; the iconography shows seated female deities (individually or as a group) who are nursing children or to…

Name of one of the oldest and most celebrated Roman patrician families; during the Roman Republic the largest and most extensive gens, giving its name to the tribus Cornelia. Its patrician branches probably stem from the Maluginenses, frequently attested in the 5th cent. BC (C. [I 57-58]); the sequence was probably as follows: in the 5th cent. the Cossi [I 20-22]; in the 4th cent. the Scipiones [I 65-85], Rufini [I 62] and Lentuli [I 31-56]; from the 3rd cent. the Dolabellae [I 23-29], Sullae [I 87-90], Blasiones [I 8-10],…