Sites associated with pre-Christian Germanic religious practice, known primarily through later medieval texts, archaeology and place names rather than through contemporary written sources from practitioners themselves. Sacred sites are grouped by tradition at a fine grain here, so a heading can be narrow without that saying anything about the tradition's own reach.
Facts
Origins
Whose Classification This IsThe earliest surviving description of Germanic cult places is Tacitus' Germania, written in 98 CE by a Roman who had not visited them and who was arguing about Rome as much as reporting on the north. It is an outsider's account, and the category it created has shaped every later one, including this grouping's own heading. 3 Overview
What Defines This GroupingCult places of the pre-Christian Germanic peoples - groves, springs, bog deposits and open-air sanctuaries rather than temples in the later sense. What is known of them comes from Roman writers, from later Christian chronicles and from excavation; none of it is a Germanic account of Germanic worship. 2 Learn More
Germanic sacred sites
This small group holds a sacred site of the wider Germanic pagan world, a cult place of the pre-Christian Germanic peoples, whose sacred groves and sanctuaries are attested by Roman writers, later chronicles and archaeology.
The browser will find the site the atlas classes here. The entry describes what is known of it, noting the reliance on outside and later sources.
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Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. Dictionary of Northern Mythology
3. Germania
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, 98
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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