SACRED SPACES

How do sacred spaces affect the cultural landscape?

What are sacred spaces?

• -natural or man-made places which inspire reverence, attendance, or fear

• -places avoided from superstition, visited by pilgrims and tourists

• -at times denied entry by non-members of that religion

• -could be location of supernatural or mystical event

• -viewed as home to the Gods

ANCIENT SACRED SPACES

• -RIVERS

• -MOUNTAINS

• -BUTTES

• -RINGS OF STONES

• -TREES

CEMETERIES

• Taj Mahal, Sacred Space or Tourist Attraction?

• -Cemeteries in the Arab World (parks)

• -Land usage, spatial features

Cemetery in Suffolk

Commemorating Civil War Heroes In Crypts above the ground

Suffolk, Continued

Family crypts Family crypt for the Dardens

Using every available space

St. Peter’s Cathedral, NYC

Plaza

BaroqueCathedral

Siena, Italy

Medieval Churches

(Protestant & Catholic!)

SurroundingVillage

Hallstatt, Austria

CanadaHalifax Newfoundland

Expansive land use in Halifax, NS

Prime spot in the community, on a bluff, Methodist on one side, Anglican on the other

Ecuador-Spanish heritage, Roman CatholicA small community in the Andes called Salinas

Private graves using more land or….

Group stacking to conserve space

©Valerie Morgan Mervine

Or a large city…Guayaquil

Using every available spaceHillside graves

ZOROASTRIANISM/PARSIShttp://www.deathonline.net/disposal/exposure/zoroastrians.cfm

Jewish burial practices

• -pine box

• -24 hours

• -tearing of clothes

• -white shroud

• -buried without embalming or cremation but depends on how closely you follow the religious practices

• -one year later, ceremony for tombstone

Muslim burial practices

• -buried within 24 hours, Muslim cemetery preferred

• -white shroud

• -men attend body to the cemetery

• -women mourn 4 months, 10 days, do not remarry, do not wear colorful clothing

• -no embalming or cremation

• -buried in place they die

Giza Pyramidswoodchurchscience.edublogs.org

www.richard-seaman.com

Catacombs

Burial practices in Aboriginal Australia• Men covered in white clay, preparing the bones of two deceased,

which will be placed in the two decorated hollow logs. Yirrkala, Arnhem Land. 1947.

• The primary burial is when the corpse is layed out on an elevated wooden platform, covered in leaves and branches, and left several months for the flesh to rot away from the bones. The secondary burial is when the bones are collected from the platform, painted with red ochre, and then dispersed in different ways. Sometimes a relative will carry a portion of the bones with them for a year or more. Sometimes Burial practices vary throughout Australia, people being buried in parts of southern and central Australia, but having quite a different burial in the north. Across much of northern Australia, a person’s burial has two stages, each accompanied by ritual and ceremony.

• they are wrapped in paperbark and deposited in a cave shelter, where they are left to disintegrate with time. In parts of Arnhem Land the bones are placed into a large hollow log and left at a designated area of bushland. The hollow log is a dead tree trunk which has been naturally hollowed out by the action of termites.

EXAMPLES OF SACRED SPACES

Buddhism: 8 specific events connected with the life of Buddha

-Bodhi Tree at Bodh Gaya, India (enlightenment)

-Where he taught

-Lumbini (where he was born)

Pagodas: designed to illuminate the meanings of Buddhist philosophy

Bodh Gaya

BuddhaBodhi Tree

Lumbini

HINDUISM

• -Location of shrines are most important, must minimally disrupt the natural setting

• -ancient Hindu Temples located in caves• -Hindu temples shaped like mountains, closer to

heaven=dieties• -present-day Hindu Temples have cave-like

rooms built• -grid pattern, each square represents a diety• -shrines try to be located by water, holy ritual

bathing

Hindu Temple

SHINTOISM

• -Shinto shrines

• -Clap and pray to Kami

• Torii Gates (signature sign)

Dome of the Rock

Wailing Wall

Conflict Over SacredSites

Judaism, ChristianityIslam

Jeruselem

CONFLICT cont..

-Hindus vs. Muslims

-Ayodhya, India

-Hindus destroyed a 450 year old mosque

-Hindus claim birthplace of Rama, God-King

-Muslims retaliate, Allah offended, bloodshed, violence

-Indian law bans Hindu rites at the site

Hindus vs. Muslims

Conflict cont…

• Darbar Sahib, the Golden Temple

• Most holy site for Sikhs

• -Sikhs used sacred site to launch missile attacks for leverage to gain control of Punjab, 1000 Sikhs killed

• -Indira Gandhi assassinated by Sikhs

TOURISM vs. PILGRIMAGES

• Mekkah-Saudi Arabia

• -strain on infrastructure• -costly• -continuously built-up environment• -trampling deaths• -gov’t restriction on visas• -service jobs 4 X oil industry

Mecca

Mecca and Kaba

Pilgrims vs. Tourists

-BEAR BUTTE

• Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne

vs.

• U.S. Government Parks and Recreation

-Sacred to some, secular to others

Present and Future Concerns

• -strain on host governments

• -preservation

• -economic exploitation

Resources

• De Blij, Harm, J. (2007). Human Geography People, Place and Culture. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

• Domosh, Mona, Neumann, Roderic, Price, Patricia, & Jordan-Bychkov, 2010. The Human Mosaic, A Cultural Approach to Human Geography. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.

• Fellman, Jerome, D., Getis, Arthur, & Getis, Judith, 2008. Human Geography, Landscapes of Human Activities. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

• Pulsipher, Lydia Mihelic and Alex M. and Pulsipher, 2008. World Regional Geography, Global Patterns, Local Lives. W.H. Freeman and Company New York.  

• Rubenstein, James M. (2008). An introduction to human geography The cultural landscape. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

• Benewick, Robert, & Donald, Stephanie H. (2005). The State of

• China Atlas. Berkeley: University of California Press.