Il culto di Iside in territorio amerino

An altar consecrated to the goddess Isis from the late 1st century AD recently discovered in the territory of Ameria (Regio VI-Umbria) suggests new considerations about the spread of the Egyptian cults in the medium Tiber Valley. The monument comes from a rural site (S. Pancrazio) near the route of Via Amerina and upstream the Rio Grande, left tributary of the Tiber, where excavations are being carried out. The site is a few km from Seripola, the port of Ameria on the Tiber, that is known for different finds relating to the Egyptian deities. Brick stamps from Seripola and Amelia refer to a public sanctuary. The set of isiaca from the territory of Ameria, that is in line with those from Falerii, is the richest preserved in Umbria, where the Isiac sites seem to be distributed exclusively along the via Amerina. Based on the edition of the new altar and on a survey of the archeological evidence for Isis in Umbria, this paper aims at examining the propagation dynamics of the Isis cult in this internal region of the Italian peninsula.