Sacred Sites

427 entries. Click any to see everything it connects to.

Places treated as holy or as centres of practice: temples, mountains, rivers, oracles, stone circles and pilgrimage destinations, ranging in scale from a single shrine to an entire mountain range venerated as a whole. Each entry gives a location and the tradition or traditions that hold the site sacred, drawing on archaeological, textual and continuing-practice evidence as each is available. Many sites have been sacred to more than one religion in succession, sometimes built directly atop an earlier tradition's own holy ground, and the entries note that layered history where it applies rather than presenting a site as belonging to a single tradition alone.

Facts

Overview

Entries in the Atlas: 427
What Defines This Grouping: Places a tradition itself treats as holy, or as a centre of practice, grouped by the tradition that holds them so. The grounds recorded are the grounds the tradition gives - a theophany held to have happened there, the presence of relics, a landscape feature read as a sign, or long ritual use - and a place sacred to several traditions is recorded under each claim, not assigned to one owner. 1

Status

Standing as a Comparative Category: Standard. Sacred space is a standard analytic category in the study of religion. What is disputed is the explanation of it: whether holiness inheres in a place that discloses itself, or is conferred on a place by ritual and by human choice of where to act. The atlas records the grounds each tradition itself gives and does not settle that question. 1

Sources

Encyclopedia of Religion Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), 2005, s.v. Sacred Space

Learn More

Places Treated as Holy

This category gathers the places traditions hold sacred or treat as centres of practice: temples, mountains, rivers, caves, oracles, stone circles and pilgrimage destinations. Each entry gives a location and the tradition or traditions for which the place is holy, and describes what is done there and why it is revered.

Sacredness is attached to places for many reasons (a theophany or miracle held to have occurred there, the presence of relics or a shrine, a striking feature of the landscape read as a sign, or long use as a site of ritual), and the entries record the grounds a tradition itself gives.

Layered and Contested Holiness

Many of the most important sites have been sacred to more than one tradition in succession or at once, and their history is one of reuse, sharing and sometimes conflict. A temple may stand where an older shrine stood; a single city or mountain may be holy to several religions with competing claims. The atlas records this layered history rather than assigning a place to one owner, and notes contested sites soberly.

The sites group by tradition (Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Indigenous and many more), so a browser can narrow from all sacred places to those of one culture.