Reconstructing the Diana’s Temple at Nemi

Posted by Nikolaos Markoulakis

Yesterday has been announced the launch of a new web-site of a project which reconstructs the Temple of Diana at Lake Nemi. In Nottingham a team compiled by the Curator and Manager of the History and Archaeological of Nottingham City Museums and Galleries, and friend, Ann Inscker, the Lecturer in Classics at Nottingham University, Katharina Lorenz and the Computing and IT Lecturer, Damian Schofield and researcher Jez Noond, reconstructs and creates a journey for us in the ancient Roman cult of Diana.

The web-site is not yet finalized – ‘build’, that I guess will be the section that will provide us with the reconstruction and the ‘send’ which is the section that the visitor can browse and send ‘virtual votives’! However the web-site is well designed.

The Temple of Diana at Lake Nemi is situated in the south Rome, in the Alban hills, next to a small lake (the smaller of the two volcanic lakes) which was called ‘mirror of Diana’. Her cult, Diana Nemorensis, can be traced back to Orestes. As Lorenz mentions the cult has an eccentric practice: the priest called rex Nemorensis was a slave who had to “slaying the incumbent, and who himself was compelled to be on his guard to defend his own life against similar candidates of his priesthood” –clearly a Roman practice!

Visit the web-site and enjoy exploring a Roman Diana’s cult.
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