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, p...