This page groups sacred geometry figures by the structure or text in which each one is first attested. Wikipedia notes that sacred geometry appears in "the design and construction of religious structures such as churches, temples, mosques, religious monuments, altars, and tabernacles." Browsing by attested-in lets a visitor find every figure first attested in the same structure or text.
Facts
Origins
Whose Classification This IsAssigning the five regular solids to the four elements and to the cosmos is Plato's scheme in the Timaeus, of the fourth century BCE. It is a philosophical construction, not a survival from earlier temple practice. 2 Contested Use
Contested or Appropriated Modern UseThe claim that the golden ratio governs the Parthenon, the Great Pyramid and the proportions of the human body is not supported by the measurements, though the popular "sacred geometry" literature repeats it. 1 Structure
StructureExactly five convex regular polyhedra exist. Euclid constructs all five and proves that there are no others. 3 Learn More
Meaning built into proportion
Sacred geometry covers the figures that traditions have treated as carrying meaning as well as measure: the circle, the vesica piscis, the platonic solids, the flower of life, the Sri Yantra, the golden ratio and others. The underlying idea is that certain shapes and proportions express something true about the cosmos, and that building them into temples, mandalas and diagrams aligns the work with that order.
Building meaning into proportion is well attested in temple architecture, religious art and cosmological diagrams across many cultures, from Egyptian and Greek building to Islamic geometric ornament to the yantras of Hindu and Buddhist practice.
Tradition and Modern Synthesis
Some of this material is genuinely ancient, the platonic solids and their cosmic assignments go back to Plato's Timaeus, the geometry of Gothic and Islamic architecture is real and studied, while much of the popular "sacred geometry" of recent decades, with its flower-of-life lore and grand claims, is a modern synthesis. The atlas distinguishes the historical geometry from the modern movement built around it.
The entries describe each figure, its construction, and the meanings various traditions have attached to it, noting which are old and which recent.
Attested In
Filter Results1 entry
Sources
1. Misconceptions about the Golden Ratio
George Markowsky, The College Mathematics Journal, 1992on the Parthenon and Great Pyramid claimsView the Source 2. Timaeus
3. Elements
Euclid, Green Lion Press, 2002Book XIII, Proposition 18 (closing remark)Quote, Book XIII, Proposition 18 (closing remark)
I say next that no other figure, besides the said five figures, can be constructed which is contained by equilateral and equiangular figures equal to one another.
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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