Shrines and Shrine Landscapes: Ancient and Contemporary

The history of architecture is sometimes thought to have begun with ‘shelter’ – with humans wanting to protect themselves from rain and snow. This is mostly nonsense. The truth is there is no one ‘origin story.’ The first things that go into the category ‘architecture’ had to do just as much with celestial observation, dance ceremonies, mortuary practices and landscape intensifiers. In that multi-originary world there a topic that is astonishingly absent from normative narratives, and yet something that though ancient is still part of life today in many parts of the world: shrines and shrine landscapes. The first hard evidence for shrines (as opposed to temples) starts with the early chiefdoms of the 6th millennium BCE in Mesopotamia and there can no doubt that as social and political entities began to firm themselves up into chiefdoms and kingdoms in various part of the world, the number of shrines began to proliferate. But even once temples began to be developed, shrines maintained a fundamental role.

Shrines can be of various sizes and of various intensities. They bring to life multiple types of agents, such as devotees, pilgrims, petitioners, guardians, family members, priests, and even passers-by. All too often, shrines are treated as singular things when they are in fact part of complex networks that link humans, ancestors and the landscape in a complex fabric of duties, rituals and obligations. The size of a shrine can vary. In a house, it can be the size of matchbox, in the landscape the size of a small shed and occasionally even larger. Of the millions that once existed, few are still around, since many shrines were not built of permanent material. Many shrines require limited spatial or architectural expression. A terrace, a ledge or a log could often suffice. Some shrines can be for a single deity, whereas others can be for multiple.

In Europe, shrines were systematically eradicated in the process of Christianization. One of the few with verifiable continuity is St. Winefride Shrine in Wales. Even today, shrines are vulnerable to modernization and urbanization, not to mention active repressions of various sorts and yet in many places they not only survive, they thrive. Though the shrine tradition was adopted to some degree by the monotheistic religions and brought into the orbit of organized, text-based religions, this lecture will look at shrines and shrine practices from pre-monotheistic world views.