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Brean Down : deity and Cult

The artefactual assemblage recovered during the excavation was small. The only possible votive offerings discovered were the coins, which the excavators argued to represent the remains of hoards deposited in the temple and disturbed when the stone from which the temple was constructed was robbed for re-use in buildings elsewhere. The poorly preserved text of the tablet, found on the beach below the temple site, gives the only clue to the identity of the temple deity. The name is not preserved but the address of the god as domina, 'Lady' suggests that the deity was female.

Unlike some other temples at which curse tablets have been found, for example Uley, Lydney, Pagans Hill and especially Bath, the Brean Down shrine did not lie at the centre of a large sanctuary nor within or near to a settlement. Its relatively isolated setting perhaps suggests that it was used only at certain times of the year by those farming on the down or in the nearby landscape. Perhaps it was also frequented by travellers on the Bristol Channel.


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