ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the evolution of ideas about Romanisation and the application of other models of cultural hybridity to the Roman world, problematise them and provide examine the way in which such models can be applied to epigraphic culture, language and acculturation and particularly through one case study – the cult of the god Ba'al Hammon/Saturn – and its construction by the urban populations of the region. Roman studies have come to benefit from analyses in other fields regarding hybridity or identity studies, with 'hybridity' or 'hybridisation' often being used in place of Romanisation to better describe cultural interactions. An example of the more nuanced approaches to cultural change and hybridisation can be seen in the study of linguistic 'code-switching'. Such studies have shown that different languages employed on the same inscription could convey different information, appropriate to the linguistic culture.
