Ocriticum

The sacred area

The presence of a large sacred area was decisive for the development of the village of Ocriticum; pilgrims, wayfarers, traders, shepherds stopped there to venerate the divinities. The fervent religious activity led to the multiplication of the cults practiced in the plateau, the monumentalisation and expansion of the sacred buildings and the increase in the fame of the place.

On the Peutingeriana Table (copy of an original Roman military road map) Ocriticum is seven miles from Sulmo and twenty-five from Aufidena on the important route that connected the Peligna Valley with the Sannio Pentro, recognized as the medieval Via Nova still partially passable and recognisable.

The first temple built in the area dates to the end of the 4th century BC; originally it consisted of a single cell with an almost square base, with an entrance facing South-East (where the Sun rises) around which there was a sacred garden delimited by a perimeter wall erected dry. In a subsequent building phase, an expansion of the enclosure and of the temple building took place, which was provided with a pronaos built with a significantly different technique from the cell.

In the sacred garden, dug into the ground to the west of the building, a votive deposit was found to conserve objects which, due to lack of space, could no longer be housed inside the naos; around 600 votive offerings have been found, datable between the 4th century BC and the 1st century BC, including a bronze statuette of Hercules which lay isolated on the bottom of the deposit: to Hercules, a very widespread divinity in the Peligna area in the late Italic age and Roman, therefore it seems that the temple was dedicated, albeit, probably, not exclusively. …