The archaeological record constitutes a significant and untapped resource for the study of ancient Mediterranean pilgrimage. Objects, landscapes, sites, and places serve as crucial prisms through which to examine the practice of pilgrimage, as they offer perspectives that both complement and challenge those provided by textual evidence. In this volume, Troels Kristensen poses a new set of questions about ancient pilgrimage and offers new theoretical and methodological models that advance a fundamental shift in the study of ancient Mediterranean sanctuaries. Moving away from an understanding of these sites as fixed and isolated entities defined by traditional typologies within classical archaeology, he demonstrates the critical role that they played in structuring forms of mobility and as religious places that were experienced within broader, interconnected landscapes. Kristensen's study also shows how the archaeology of pilgrimage fundamentally shapes the practice of pilgrimage itself, a dynamic as relevant today as it was in antiquity.

‘Ancient Mediterranean Pilgrimage offers key innovations in the thriving field of mobility studies: a recursive, thorough, convincing exploration of three case studies in order to test the principles of the New Mobilities Paradigm. This volume will contribute to lively conversations in theory and method around that challenge: it will be relevant to readers engaged in ancient and sacred landscapes, memory, materialities, and ritual practice.'

Sandra Blakely - Emory University

‘This is an important and innovative study that enriches the field of Classical Studies in a variety of ways. At the same time, the book speaks to a variety of disciplines outside that field. It shows the importance of a theoretically grounded (Classical) Archaeology for debates within the Social Sciences and Humanities at large.'

Miguel John Versluys