Publications by Julie Baleriaux
Kernos 32, 2019
Poseidon has recently benefited from renewed scholarly attention, contributing to re-evaluate his... more Poseidon has recently benefited from renewed scholarly attention, contributing to re-evaluate his role in ancient Greek imaginary. By opening the research previously limited to literary evidence to the archaeological and topographical evidence, new perspectives on “Poseidonian landscapes” have emerged. Arcadia, a land-locked region where Poseidon Hippios is celebrated with fervour, is here taken as a case study to try and go further in identifying the god’s realm of action. Areas with floods seem to be his preferred worship places, while in other areas he plays a crucial part in myths but is hardly worshipped alone. There also seems to be a connection between his patronage over freshwater and horses. Overall, natural observation seems to have been instrumental in choosing the location of his worship places.
Hawes G. (ed), Myths on the Map: the storied landscapes of ancient Greece, OUP, 2017
This chapter examines the peculiarities of the Roman imperial Arcadian landscape, which caused Pa... more This chapter examines the peculiarities of the Roman imperial Arcadian landscape, which caused Pausanias to represent the region as notably numinous. In order to understand the religious landscape presented by Pausanias, where a few cults and many peculiar myths survive in an emptied countryside, this chapter discusses the political, economic, and social changes brought by historical circumstances in Arcadia. The role of local elites as mediators of the Roman administration in those changes, and how they impacted the survival of cults and myths, is then examined thanks to epigraphic evidence.
Published in Hawes G. (ed), Myths on the Map: the storied landscapes of ancient Greece, OUP, Oxford: 2017.
Jeremy McInerney & Ineke Sluiter (eds.), Landscapes of Value: natural environment and cultural imagination in classical antiquity, Brill, 2016
Although they flow in the world of the dead, the Styx, the Acheron and the Cocytus are also visib... more Although they flow in the world of the dead, the Styx, the Acheron and the Cocytus are also visible in different parts of the Greek world. This apparent discrepancy does not seem to cause any problem for the Greeks, nor does the fact that, for instance, several Acherusian Lakes are reported in the Greek world. This paper aims to explore this alleged inconsistency further by looking at what could have prompted close contacts between the realm of the dead, where infernal rivers are supposed to flow, and the world of the living, where they are reported flowing. I argue that the picture of Hades and Tartarus, which together compose the realm of the dead, as wet places crossed by streams of water emerged from the observation of a very common natural phenomenon in Greece: karstic, or subterranean rivers. The bedrock on which a great part of Greece rests is made of limestone, a rock that can be weathered and carved by water. Many Greek rivers have sections of their course underground, which means that after flowing on the surface the water dives into the ground and flows into natural cavities called swallow-holes or sinkholes, which they contribute to carve further. I shall explore to what extent the observation of subterranean rivers – a physical, natural phenomenon – may have contributed to the elaboration of a picture of the unseen world, in particular the world of the dead.
Conferences by Julie Baleriaux
Infernal rivers, like the Styx, flow in the world of the living. This paper examines this apparen... more Infernal rivers, like the Styx, flow in the world of the living. This paper examines this apparent inconsistency by investigating what could have prompted close contacts between the realm of the dead where infernal rivers were supposed to flow and the world of the living where they were reported flowing. It argues that the picture of the realm of the dead as a wet place crossed by streams of water, consistent from Hesiod to Diodorus and afterwards, is related to the observation of a geological phenomenon very common in Greece (and in the Mediterranean): karst landscapes, which makes many Greek rivers have sections of their course underground. Thus, this paper will discuss to what extent the practical observation of subterranean rivers by ancient Greeks contributed to the elaboration of a picture of the unseen world, and in particular inspired the conception of the world of the dead as a region ringed and circumscribed by waters.
Political events have a repercussion on the monumental landscape of cities and their local tradit... more Political events have a repercussion on the monumental landscape of cities and their local tradition: that is still true today, and was undoubtedly the case in ancient Arcadia. In Greek poleis, monuments were built at strategic places which made sense, and presented viewers with different layers of possible interpretation, from episodes taken from panhellenic narratives to very local histories.
In this paper, I will examine three cases in which the Arcadians used monumental memory, namely adding layers of interpretation to monuments, existing or new, to fulfil contemporary claims. These cases will be:
- The monuments of the Tegean agora, which all seem to display how much the Tegeans hated the Spartans from a very early time;
- The statuary group of the Arcadians at Delphi, which features a very conveniently newly found son of Arcas;
- The Trophy of the Arcadians in the sanctuary of Poseidon at Mantinea, which is one example of how monuments contribute to filling gaps in local memory by creating historicizing events.
Arcadia is well renowned for its religious specificity. Whereas Greece worships mostly anthropomo... more Arcadia is well renowned for its religious specificity. Whereas Greece worships mostly anthropomorphic gods, Arcadia oddly concentrates a high diversity of mixanthropic divinities. Home and birthplace of the goat-man god Pan, the region also houses the centaurs who managed to flight from Thessaly on the Mount Erymanthos. Yet, besides these animal-human god and creatures common to the rest of Greece, Arcadia shows very unique features. Indeed, some very local versions of panhellenic divinities present unique signs of mixanthropy, which surprisingly persist until the second century AD: the statue Demeter Melaina at Phigalia is described by Pausanias as having a horse head, snake hair and a female body, while that of Artemis Eurynome has a female head and chest, and a fish tail. Another case of mixing between animal and god shape is the transformation of Poseidon Hippios, one of the most important gods in Arcadia, in a horse to pursue Demeter-mare.
The fact that such local stories involve transformation into animals or parts of zoomorphism is deeply interesting, especially considering that despite the scorn that the worship of animals inspires to the Greeks (Plut. Isid. 71sq), the Arcadians kept these gods and their aitia well alive in their local tradition. Hence, this paper will investigate what could have led the Arcadians to keep worshipping partly-zoomorphic gods and spreading logoi about them. A special emphasis will be put, on one hand, on how the Arcadians were regarded by the other Greeks for doing so, and on the other hand on what they may have though of themselves in this respect.
Gods are everywhere, but not anywhere. In ancient Greece, each divinity has a privileged natural ... more Gods are everywhere, but not anywhere. In ancient Greece, each divinity has a privileged natural environment. In this paper, I will discuss the case of Poseidon Hippios in Mantinea and the Pelagos mentioned in Pausanias.
Mantinea, in Arcadia, is placed in a basin surrounded by more or less high mountains, with no direct access to the coast. Few evidence came to us about his cult, although it is obvious that the god is the patron of the city. He is located outside the walls, on the edge of a plain in which the periegete Pausanias mentions a grove named “Pelagos”, or “the Sea”. The presence of Poseidon in a place completely remote from the actual sea and, moreover, near a place called “Sea”, is intriguing. I will argue that the Arcadian “sea” is not what we – or the other ancient Greeks – call the sea, and that Poseidon Hippios hold a perfectly logical place in Mantinea.
Eventually, the paper will address in filigrane the core questions of religious topography: what does the siting of religious places tell us about the way their worshippers pictured their environment? What makes a place sacred? And, after all, why does it matter?
"By what medium can an ethnic identity be built? The aim of this paper is to show that political ... more "By what medium can an ethnic identity be built? The aim of this paper is to show that political unification is not a condition sine qua non for the existence of an ethnic conscience.
In Arkadia, despite a politically fragmented situation, a regional ethnic conscience still exists. My point is to demonstrate that an ethnos can be built on religion and the effort of differentiation from neighbouring ethne. To illustrate this, I am investigating the Lykaian Games. The games were famous in literary tradition for being some the oldest games in the Greek world. They were celebrated in honor of Zeus Lykaios on the Mount Lykaion, his Arkadian birthplace. This is also the only festival known to us to have been performed out of site. Indeed, Xenophon (1.2.10) writes about how thousands of Arkadians in Cyrus’ army stopped walking to celebrate the games while on campaign. This unusual story attests how important the game must have been for the Arkadians. Using epigraphic, numismatic and literary evidence, it becomes clear that, when it comes to religious rites like the games, a conscience of “Arkas” ethnos takes over the political opposition between Arkadian poleis."
Digital Map by Julie Baleriaux
Map of ancient sites in Arcadia including settlements, religious sites, roads. It also includes n... more Map of ancient sites in Arcadia including settlements, religious sites, roads. It also includes natural features such as rivers, springs, mountains, sinkholes/katavothres. The map is interactive, which means that relevant bibliographical references come up upon clicking on an icon. The pdf below is a snapshot of the Mantinea area and of the sanctuary of Poseidon Hippios.
I apologise for any language/spelling inconsistencies and any remaining error. Please do flag any error/update I could include in the map by sending me an email. (The map was not intended to be shared at first, and I am still in the process of polishing it).
And of course, should you use snapshots of this map in your research, I would kindly ask you to cite accordingly.
I would like to thank Brady Kiesling for his help.
Link: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1WZZ3vSyAkvw7H-xoiIyfgAGsxE0&ll=37.608600500580515%2C22.39971816806292&z=12 (may require a Google account to view)
PhD Thesis by Julie Baleriaux
The thesis examines the religious topography of Arcadia through two particular aspects: the built... more The thesis examines the religious topography of Arcadia through two particular aspects: the built and the natural landscape, and how each relates to human communities, their places of living, and their understanding of the world around. It relies on the assumption commonly made in the field that, since ritual practice was of prevalent importance for the Greeks, cult sites are the most important places for the communities, and therefore they can tell us a lot about the people who built, visited and looked after them.
The first part rests on the acknowledgement that sanctuaries are places of interaction for a certain community of cult (which can but need not overlap with a given polis) and explores how they can be indicators of social change, defined here as responses to changes with large impact on the human milieu. These changes and their response articulated in sacred space are identified in four chapters. The first sets the stage and surveys the known sacred sites of Arcadia at the end of the Bronze Age and during the Dark Ages. The second looks at how the building of temples after the eighth century indicates a significant change in the way communities were structured in Arcadia. The third looks at how Arcadian sanctuaries responded to the increased religious mobility of the Classical and Hellenistic period. Finally, chapter four evaluates the impact of the Roman conquest on Arcadian religious sites.
The second part explores how myths and rationalising discourses allowed the Greeks to make sense of the salient characteristics and numen of their surrounding natural landscape. Each of the three chapters departs from a situation observed in Arcadia by ancient sources and examines the responses articulated to explain it. Among the variety of topics to pursue, three have been selected because they exemplify a typical characteristic of Arcadia: its wetness. They also allow spatial areas that were less prominent in part one to be explored. The first chapter explores the apparent contradiction of having infernal rivers observable in the world of the living, such as the Styx flowing in the Aroania Mountains. The second chapter examines the connection made in ancient sources between Poseidon’s lordship over the Peloponnese, earthquakes, floods and cults of Poseidon Hippios in Arcadia. The third and last chapter investigates the attribution of Mycenaean waterworks in Arcadia to Herakles in myth.
Books by Julie Baleriaux
by Ralph Haussler, Gian Franco Chiai, Eris Williams Reed, Francesca Diosono, Leticia López-Mondéjar, Lucia Alberti, Katharina Zinn, Francisco Marco, Anthony C King, Marco García Quintela, María Cruz Cardete, Elena Chepel, Julie Baleriaux, Maxwell Stocker, Marco Palone, Selga Medenieks, Anastasia Tchaplyghine (formerly Amrhein), Gilbert Burleigh, and Daniele Salvoldi ed. by R. Haeussler & G. F. Chiai. Oxford: Oxbow Books (2020), 2020
33 authors collaborated in this volume on sacred landscapes in the ancient world in a comparative... more 33 authors collaborated in this volume on sacred landscapes in the ancient world in a comparative, multi-disciplinary perspective, between Britain and Egypt, Portugal and China.
From generation to generation, people experience their landscapes differently. Humans depend on their natural environment: it shapes their behaviour and it is often felt that one has to appease one's deities that were responsible for natural benefits, but also for natural calamities, like droughts, famines, floods and landslides. In many societies, we presume that lakes, rivers, rocks, mountains, caves and groves were considered sacred. Individual sites and entire landscapes are often associated with divine actions, mythical heroes and etiological myths. Throughout human history, people also felt the need to monumentalise their sacred landscape. But this is where the similarities stop as different societies had very different understandings, believes and practises. The aim of this book is therefore to carefully scrutinise our evidence and rethink our methodologies in a multidisciplinary approach. More than thirty papers investigate diverse sacred landscapes from the Iberian peninsula and Britain in the west to China in the east. They discuss how to interpret the intricate web of ciphers and symbols in the landscape and how people might have experienced it. We see the role of performance, ritual, orality, textuality and memory in people's sacred landscapes. A diachronic view allows us to study how landscapes were 're-written', adapted and redefined in the course of time to suit new cultural, political and religious understandings, not to mention the impact of urbanism on people's understandings. How was the landscape manipulated, transformed and monumentalised, especially the colossal investments in monumental architecture we see in certain socio-historic contexts or the creation of an alternative humanmade, seemingly 'non-natural' landscape, with perfectly astronomically aligned buildings that defines a cosmological order? This volume therefore aims to analyse the complex links between landscape, 'religiosity' and society, developing a dialectic framework that explores sacred landscapes across the ancient world in a dynamic, holistic, contextual and historical perspective.
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Publications by Julie Baleriaux
Published in Hawes G. (ed), Myths on the Map: the storied landscapes of ancient Greece, OUP, Oxford: 2017.
Conferences by Julie Baleriaux
In this paper, I will examine three cases in which the Arcadians used monumental memory, namely adding layers of interpretation to monuments, existing or new, to fulfil contemporary claims. These cases will be:
- The monuments of the Tegean agora, which all seem to display how much the Tegeans hated the Spartans from a very early time;
- The statuary group of the Arcadians at Delphi, which features a very conveniently newly found son of Arcas;
- The Trophy of the Arcadians in the sanctuary of Poseidon at Mantinea, which is one example of how monuments contribute to filling gaps in local memory by creating historicizing events.
The fact that such local stories involve transformation into animals or parts of zoomorphism is deeply interesting, especially considering that despite the scorn that the worship of animals inspires to the Greeks (Plut. Isid. 71sq), the Arcadians kept these gods and their aitia well alive in their local tradition. Hence, this paper will investigate what could have led the Arcadians to keep worshipping partly-zoomorphic gods and spreading logoi about them. A special emphasis will be put, on one hand, on how the Arcadians were regarded by the other Greeks for doing so, and on the other hand on what they may have though of themselves in this respect.
Mantinea, in Arcadia, is placed in a basin surrounded by more or less high mountains, with no direct access to the coast. Few evidence came to us about his cult, although it is obvious that the god is the patron of the city. He is located outside the walls, on the edge of a plain in which the periegete Pausanias mentions a grove named “Pelagos”, or “the Sea”. The presence of Poseidon in a place completely remote from the actual sea and, moreover, near a place called “Sea”, is intriguing. I will argue that the Arcadian “sea” is not what we – or the other ancient Greeks – call the sea, and that Poseidon Hippios hold a perfectly logical place in Mantinea.
Eventually, the paper will address in filigrane the core questions of religious topography: what does the siting of religious places tell us about the way their worshippers pictured their environment? What makes a place sacred? And, after all, why does it matter?
In Arkadia, despite a politically fragmented situation, a regional ethnic conscience still exists. My point is to demonstrate that an ethnos can be built on religion and the effort of differentiation from neighbouring ethne. To illustrate this, I am investigating the Lykaian Games. The games were famous in literary tradition for being some the oldest games in the Greek world. They were celebrated in honor of Zeus Lykaios on the Mount Lykaion, his Arkadian birthplace. This is also the only festival known to us to have been performed out of site. Indeed, Xenophon (1.2.10) writes about how thousands of Arkadians in Cyrus’ army stopped walking to celebrate the games while on campaign. This unusual story attests how important the game must have been for the Arkadians. Using epigraphic, numismatic and literary evidence, it becomes clear that, when it comes to religious rites like the games, a conscience of “Arkas” ethnos takes over the political opposition between Arkadian poleis."
Digital Map by Julie Baleriaux
I apologise for any language/spelling inconsistencies and any remaining error. Please do flag any error/update I could include in the map by sending me an email. (The map was not intended to be shared at first, and I am still in the process of polishing it).
And of course, should you use snapshots of this map in your research, I would kindly ask you to cite accordingly.
I would like to thank Brady Kiesling for his help.
Link: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1WZZ3vSyAkvw7H-xoiIyfgAGsxE0&ll=37.608600500580515%2C22.39971816806292&z=12 (may require a Google account to view)
PhD Thesis by Julie Baleriaux
The first part rests on the acknowledgement that sanctuaries are places of interaction for a certain community of cult (which can but need not overlap with a given polis) and explores how they can be indicators of social change, defined here as responses to changes with large impact on the human milieu. These changes and their response articulated in sacred space are identified in four chapters. The first sets the stage and surveys the known sacred sites of Arcadia at the end of the Bronze Age and during the Dark Ages. The second looks at how the building of temples after the eighth century indicates a significant change in the way communities were structured in Arcadia. The third looks at how Arcadian sanctuaries responded to the increased religious mobility of the Classical and Hellenistic period. Finally, chapter four evaluates the impact of the Roman conquest on Arcadian religious sites.
The second part explores how myths and rationalising discourses allowed the Greeks to make sense of the salient characteristics and numen of their surrounding natural landscape. Each of the three chapters departs from a situation observed in Arcadia by ancient sources and examines the responses articulated to explain it. Among the variety of topics to pursue, three have been selected because they exemplify a typical characteristic of Arcadia: its wetness. They also allow spatial areas that were less prominent in part one to be explored. The first chapter explores the apparent contradiction of having infernal rivers observable in the world of the living, such as the Styx flowing in the Aroania Mountains. The second chapter examines the connection made in ancient sources between Poseidon’s lordship over the Peloponnese, earthquakes, floods and cults of Poseidon Hippios in Arcadia. The third and last chapter investigates the attribution of Mycenaean waterworks in Arcadia to Herakles in myth.
Books by Julie Baleriaux
From generation to generation, people experience their landscapes differently. Humans depend on their natural environment: it shapes their behaviour and it is often felt that one has to appease one's deities that were responsible for natural benefits, but also for natural calamities, like droughts, famines, floods and landslides. In many societies, we presume that lakes, rivers, rocks, mountains, caves and groves were considered sacred. Individual sites and entire landscapes are often associated with divine actions, mythical heroes and etiological myths. Throughout human history, people also felt the need to monumentalise their sacred landscape. But this is where the similarities stop as different societies had very different understandings, believes and practises. The aim of this book is therefore to carefully scrutinise our evidence and rethink our methodologies in a multidisciplinary approach. More than thirty papers investigate diverse sacred landscapes from the Iberian peninsula and Britain in the west to China in the east. They discuss how to interpret the intricate web of ciphers and symbols in the landscape and how people might have experienced it. We see the role of performance, ritual, orality, textuality and memory in people's sacred landscapes. A diachronic view allows us to study how landscapes were 're-written', adapted and redefined in the course of time to suit new cultural, political and religious understandings, not to mention the impact of urbanism on people's understandings. How was the landscape manipulated, transformed and monumentalised, especially the colossal investments in monumental architecture we see in certain socio-historic contexts or the creation of an alternative humanmade, seemingly 'non-natural' landscape, with perfectly astronomically aligned buildings that defines a cosmological order? This volume therefore aims to analyse the complex links between landscape, 'religiosity' and society, developing a dialectic framework that explores sacred landscapes across the ancient world in a dynamic, holistic, contextual and historical perspective.
Published in Hawes G. (ed), Myths on the Map: the storied landscapes of ancient Greece, OUP, Oxford: 2017.
In this paper, I will examine three cases in which the Arcadians used monumental memory, namely adding layers of interpretation to monuments, existing or new, to fulfil contemporary claims. These cases will be:
- The monuments of the Tegean agora, which all seem to display how much the Tegeans hated the Spartans from a very early time;
- The statuary group of the Arcadians at Delphi, which features a very conveniently newly found son of Arcas;
- The Trophy of the Arcadians in the sanctuary of Poseidon at Mantinea, which is one example of how monuments contribute to filling gaps in local memory by creating historicizing events.
The fact that such local stories involve transformation into animals or parts of zoomorphism is deeply interesting, especially considering that despite the scorn that the worship of animals inspires to the Greeks (Plut. Isid. 71sq), the Arcadians kept these gods and their aitia well alive in their local tradition. Hence, this paper will investigate what could have led the Arcadians to keep worshipping partly-zoomorphic gods and spreading logoi about them. A special emphasis will be put, on one hand, on how the Arcadians were regarded by the other Greeks for doing so, and on the other hand on what they may have though of themselves in this respect.
Mantinea, in Arcadia, is placed in a basin surrounded by more or less high mountains, with no direct access to the coast. Few evidence came to us about his cult, although it is obvious that the god is the patron of the city. He is located outside the walls, on the edge of a plain in which the periegete Pausanias mentions a grove named “Pelagos”, or “the Sea”. The presence of Poseidon in a place completely remote from the actual sea and, moreover, near a place called “Sea”, is intriguing. I will argue that the Arcadian “sea” is not what we – or the other ancient Greeks – call the sea, and that Poseidon Hippios hold a perfectly logical place in Mantinea.
Eventually, the paper will address in filigrane the core questions of religious topography: what does the siting of religious places tell us about the way their worshippers pictured their environment? What makes a place sacred? And, after all, why does it matter?
In Arkadia, despite a politically fragmented situation, a regional ethnic conscience still exists. My point is to demonstrate that an ethnos can be built on religion and the effort of differentiation from neighbouring ethne. To illustrate this, I am investigating the Lykaian Games. The games were famous in literary tradition for being some the oldest games in the Greek world. They were celebrated in honor of Zeus Lykaios on the Mount Lykaion, his Arkadian birthplace. This is also the only festival known to us to have been performed out of site. Indeed, Xenophon (1.2.10) writes about how thousands of Arkadians in Cyrus’ army stopped walking to celebrate the games while on campaign. This unusual story attests how important the game must have been for the Arkadians. Using epigraphic, numismatic and literary evidence, it becomes clear that, when it comes to religious rites like the games, a conscience of “Arkas” ethnos takes over the political opposition between Arkadian poleis."
I apologise for any language/spelling inconsistencies and any remaining error. Please do flag any error/update I could include in the map by sending me an email. (The map was not intended to be shared at first, and I am still in the process of polishing it).
And of course, should you use snapshots of this map in your research, I would kindly ask you to cite accordingly.
I would like to thank Brady Kiesling for his help.
Link: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1WZZ3vSyAkvw7H-xoiIyfgAGsxE0&ll=37.608600500580515%2C22.39971816806292&z=12 (may require a Google account to view)
The first part rests on the acknowledgement that sanctuaries are places of interaction for a certain community of cult (which can but need not overlap with a given polis) and explores how they can be indicators of social change, defined here as responses to changes with large impact on the human milieu. These changes and their response articulated in sacred space are identified in four chapters. The first sets the stage and surveys the known sacred sites of Arcadia at the end of the Bronze Age and during the Dark Ages. The second looks at how the building of temples after the eighth century indicates a significant change in the way communities were structured in Arcadia. The third looks at how Arcadian sanctuaries responded to the increased religious mobility of the Classical and Hellenistic period. Finally, chapter four evaluates the impact of the Roman conquest on Arcadian religious sites.
The second part explores how myths and rationalising discourses allowed the Greeks to make sense of the salient characteristics and numen of their surrounding natural landscape. Each of the three chapters departs from a situation observed in Arcadia by ancient sources and examines the responses articulated to explain it. Among the variety of topics to pursue, three have been selected because they exemplify a typical characteristic of Arcadia: its wetness. They also allow spatial areas that were less prominent in part one to be explored. The first chapter explores the apparent contradiction of having infernal rivers observable in the world of the living, such as the Styx flowing in the Aroania Mountains. The second chapter examines the connection made in ancient sources between Poseidon’s lordship over the Peloponnese, earthquakes, floods and cults of Poseidon Hippios in Arcadia. The third and last chapter investigates the attribution of Mycenaean waterworks in Arcadia to Herakles in myth.
From generation to generation, people experience their landscapes differently. Humans depend on their natural environment: it shapes their behaviour and it is often felt that one has to appease one's deities that were responsible for natural benefits, but also for natural calamities, like droughts, famines, floods and landslides. In many societies, we presume that lakes, rivers, rocks, mountains, caves and groves were considered sacred. Individual sites and entire landscapes are often associated with divine actions, mythical heroes and etiological myths. Throughout human history, people also felt the need to monumentalise their sacred landscape. But this is where the similarities stop as different societies had very different understandings, believes and practises. The aim of this book is therefore to carefully scrutinise our evidence and rethink our methodologies in a multidisciplinary approach. More than thirty papers investigate diverse sacred landscapes from the Iberian peninsula and Britain in the west to China in the east. They discuss how to interpret the intricate web of ciphers and symbols in the landscape and how people might have experienced it. We see the role of performance, ritual, orality, textuality and memory in people's sacred landscapes. A diachronic view allows us to study how landscapes were 're-written', adapted and redefined in the course of time to suit new cultural, political and religious understandings, not to mention the impact of urbanism on people's understandings. How was the landscape manipulated, transformed and monumentalised, especially the colossal investments in monumental architecture we see in certain socio-historic contexts or the creation of an alternative humanmade, seemingly 'non-natural' landscape, with perfectly astronomically aligned buildings that defines a cosmological order? This volume therefore aims to analyse the complex links between landscape, 'religiosity' and society, developing a dialectic framework that explores sacred landscapes across the ancient world in a dynamic, holistic, contextual and historical perspective.