Notebook
The Horns at Faqra
The mountain did not become sacred because Rome arrived. Rome arrived because the mountain was sacred.
At Faqra, the inscription names an ancestral god. That word is everything.
The Roman emperor could be carved into the stone, but he had to share the dedication with Baelgalasos, the local lord already at home on the mountain. Empire added its name to a sanctuary it did not author.
The god kept the address. Rome paid for renovations.
