Abstract
The author expresses a few observations on some opinions concerning the pre- and protohistoric religion within the Romanian historiography. He observes an excessive dependence, especially of the prehistorians, on Mircea Eliade’s and Marija Gimbutas’ generalizing, not always founded, opinions. He considers that, in their interpretations, the pre- and protohistory specialists should first of all use the Oriental, Greek and Latin written sources. In such a context, starting from the classical sources, the author suggests some opinions for the following aspects: 1) the specificity of the prehistoric religion, characterized as polytheist, despite the pre-eminence of a feminine divinity with polyvalent attributes and functions; he rejects, as erroneous, the idea of a ”dual” or ”dualistic” religion; 2) the so-called ”cult of waters”, considered an error, as the history of religions does not record such a cult of the aquatic element in itself, but only the sacred character of water as a property or form of manifestation of a divinity; 3) the ”tree of life” – an expression considered restrictive, suggesting the concept of sacred tree; 4) the terminology of cult constructions in pre- and protohistory; considering the confusion met in many works especially between temple and sanctuary and the use, for lack of written information, of criteria exterior to the juridical-religious act of consecration in the naming of some cult edifices (size, inventory, setting, etc.), the author suggests using the Latin generalizing and neuter term fanum for all pre- and protohistoric cult constructions considered sacred.