Premium
Sacred Space in the Ancient Near East
Author(s) -
Wasilewska Ewa
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
religion compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.113
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1749-8171
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00138.x
Subject(s) - mesopotamia , middle east , context (archaeology) , palestine , adaptation (eye) , politics , ancient history , focus (optics) , space (punctuation) , history , geography , archaeology , psychology , political science , philosophy , law , linguistics , physics , optics , neuroscience
The focus of this article is to demonstrate how sacred space in the ancient Near East manifested itself, that is, how it was chosen and used; how it was differentiated from profane areas; and how viable it was for adaptation to socio‐political and socio‐religious changes. Due to the massive amount of available data on sacral places from ancient Anatolia, Egypt, Iran, Mesopotamia, and Syria‐Palestine only selected examples of temples and/or sanctuaries are discussed in general, sparing the reader their detailed descriptions but setting them up within an appropriate cultural context.