This page groups sacred sites by whether their sacred status is still actively maintained. Wikipedia notes that Mircea Eliade "argues that while the concept of a sacred space is often associated with religious traditions, it is not exclusive to them," since secular societies can keep treating a place as significant too. Browsing this way lets a visitor tell a site with living religious observance apart from one preserved mainly for its history.
Facts
Overview
What Defines This GroupingTemples, tombs and cult precincts raised along the Nile across three millennia for the gods and for the divine king. Temple and tomb are not separate categories here: a royal mortuary complex was a temple with a daily offering cult, and the two are recorded as one class of place. 2 Attestation
Era of AttestationMonumental cult architecture is attested from the Third Dynasty, about 2650 BCE, to the closing of the last functioning temple cult, at Philae, in the sixth century CE - some three thousand two hundred years of continuous building for the same gods. 2 Learn More
Sacred sites of ancient Egypt
This group holds the sacred sites of ancient Egyptian religion, the temples, tombs and sacred precincts raised along the Nile over three millennia for the gods and the divine pharaoh. Egyptian sacred architecture is among the most monumental of the ancient world.
The browser will find the great temple complexes, the necropolises and the cult centres of the Egyptian gods. The entries describe each site's deities, function and history, treating them as monuments of a historical religion no longer practised.
Practice Status
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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