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'Contested heritage' and 'cancel culture' have specific meanings and points of reference in our culture today, but these are by no means new phenomena in the life of cathedrals. At the time of the Reformation and the Civil War, all evidence of traditional Catholic culture was considered fair game for iconoclasts, who systematically destroyed saints' shrines and tombs with their relics. In recent years, in association with the revival of the practice of pilgrimage and in unstated rejection of Reformation tradition, shrines of saints in many cathedrals have been restored, some including relics. It is unsurprising that saints and their shrines can be controversial, since saints themselves are 'signs of contradiction', those whose lives lived according to the standards of the kingdom of heaven challenge the values of earthly kingdoms and cultures. Norwich Cathedral is unusual among the ancient cathedrals of England in never having had a great saint enshrined within it. This study will consider the cases of two figures locally revered as martyrs, William of Norwich and Edith Cavell, whose lives and witness have been causes of international controversy and yet who still merit commemoration by Christians today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Jinn of Islamic and Middle Eastern popular mythology play a role in maintaining spatial divisions between sacred and profane space, public and protected areas, and acceptable and exceptional behaviour. Though research on jinn continues to be of importance in cross-cultural psychology, the rich relationship between jinn and place has largely been lost or severed. This paper seeks to restore this link through an examination of the relationship between unseen spirits and place in Palestine and throughout the Levant (Bilad ash-Sham). Drawing upon both European and Palestinian historical ethnographic writing, as well as oral history interviews with Palestinian elders, this paper examines spatial practices that can attract, prevent, or heal harm from jinn and other unseen forces, as well as places where such spirits dwell, including graveyards, caves, wells, sacred trees, and shrines. Jinn play a dual role in helping to protect the sanctity of these places, while also threatening to violate the intimate space hearth and home. In this way, jinn play an important role in both establishing, and at times blurring and negotiating social mores and their related physical boundaries. In examining how jinn threaten the sanctity of homes and bodies, but also how place-dwelling spirits help to heal bodies and sooth souls, this paper moves beyond mere metaphorical understandings of spectral geographies to understand the material implications of unseen and imagined forces. By doing so, this paper builds upon recent research exploring the deep connection between the environment and spiritual/sacred understandings of place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that since the 1990s, roadside shrines in the United States have become place-bound forms of media that provide multiple publics with platforms for communicating with the dead and for communicating with other platform users about the dead. Evidence that roadside shrines function as media today is accessible even to strangers who witness roadside shrines because people leave visual, material, and spatial traces of these communications at shrine sites themselves. There, you can see that people interact with shrines as if they are platforms for communication – demonstrating elaborately performed 'continuing bonds' between mourners and the site, and thus victims, as well as among mourners. Moreover, roadside shrines are today intertwined with the larger convergent media environment, where a shrine site often becomes a material manifestation of other representations of 'the pervasive dead' across the media environment. To trace the history of how roadside shrines came to work this way, I relate them to the larger cultural history of media and memorialisation in which they are entangled and then analyse three specific case studies from New Mexico and Texas at the crucial transitional moment in the first two decades of the 2000s when roadside shrines became established as media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between Alain Locke, an African American philosopher, and the Bahá'í faith. It discusses Locke's visit to Haifa in 1923, where he met with Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Faith. The article examines whether Locke was a devout believer in the Bahá'í faith or if his philosophical views were incompatible with it. The author argues that Locke's commitment to Bahá'í principles and his spiritual sensibility make him a Bahá'í, even if he did not hold doctrinaire beliefs. The article also reflects on the author's visit to the Terraces of the Shrine of the Báb in Haifa, Israel, and discusses the ongoing conflict and segregation in the region. The author concludes by expressing their own perspective as an atheist and realist, appreciating the spiritual value of the garden while acknowledging the tragic nature of the world. [Extracted from the article]

Sacred places today are at grave risk from climate change as the waters rise around these sites and fires approach and engulf them. Even the briefest online search results in a long list of examples. Summers of record heat in northern Spain imperil pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela. Rising sea levels in the Florida Panhandle threaten hundreds of ancient Indigenous sacred sites. Flooding across East Asia has displaced Buddhist monks from their monasteries. Extreme heat in Mecca led to stampedes in 1990 and again in 2015, killing hundreds of pilgrims. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey inundated the sanctuary of the oldest synagogue in Houston, Texas, Congregation Beth Israel. Shrines and other sacred spaces caught in the path of extreme climate events and their aftermaths constitute a distinctive field of lived religious experience and practice in the post-Anthropocene, another name for our cataclysmic post-secular globalized world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the rationale behind the combination of Buddha mahāstūpas (mahācetiyas) and cetiyas (caityas) within a Buddhist monastery. In integrating a broader intellectual program, the universality of the concept is exemplified, wherein "mahācetiya and cetiya" are combined to symbolize the life of Buddha through architectural arrangements. Adopting a broader intellectual program grounded in the causality principle signifies an inclination toward universality. These combinations represent sacred places and events in Buddha's life, from birth to Mahaparinirvana. They encompass significant moments, such as great departures, meditation, enlightenment, and preaching. The synthesis of mahācetiyas and apsidal shrines was a pivotal moment at the site, guided by the Mahāsaṅghika School, representing an innovative invention in the pursuit of narrative framing of Buddha's biography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dearq is the property of Universidad de los Andes and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

One of the major paradoxes embedded in religion is the complex dynamics between enchantment and disenchantment. This article takes a critical look at the theoretical implications of the political dynamics of enchantment by examining its stages in depth. We use the term 'enchanted moments of place' to challenge the use of the term 'enchanted' as a static historical or historiographical designation. It takes long-term ethnographic work at a recently emerging pilgrimage site in the north of Israel/Palestine commonly known as the Shrine of Mariam Bawardy, as an empirical point of departure to explore the dynamics of enchantment. We suggest an anthropological theory of enchantment that embraces an analysis of the ways time/place intermingles religious and everyday grassroots political dynamics. This perspective sheds light on the creation of sacred place during moments of renewed creativity, the reformulation of indigenous identities, the process of reinvented rituals, and the restoration and staging of material objects and place. Uncovering these moments can clarify the ways sacred places are politically voiced and spatialized by pilgrims, and appropriated by visitors and religious agents. Our analysis shows that these 'enchanted moments', places are more fragile and susceptible to changes caused by macro- and micro- political shifts. Enchanted moments are more sensitive to local decision-making processes, creativity, contingencies and rivalry among native agents and their aspirations for place and territoriality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution explores the 'infrastructuring' of religious sites and practices in Ghana's Ashanti region, particularly in Pentecostal-Charismatic Christian (PCC) churches and Indigenous Religious Traditions (IRTs). By 'infrastructuring', I mean the purposeful complexification and augmentation of infrastructural arrangements encompassing both material (physical) and immaterial (organisational, communicative) dimensions. The first part explores a PCC case study, Prophet Boateng's Power Chapel Worldwide (PCWW), investigating the aesthetic, economic, and political implications of infrastructuring Pentecostalism. The second part, which is a novel addition to the discourse, focuses on the emergence and expansion of heavily infrastructured IRT shrines and practices through the case of Kↄmfoↄ Oforiwaa's shrine. I argue that the aesthetic operations performed by religiously configured buildings can help generate assemblages of people, aspirations, and meanings constituting more comprehensive economic and political processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peyote grows in South Texas where licensed dealers acquire it and sell it to Native American Church members. These dealers also create and maintain special shrines on their property for the visiting buyers. The shrines not only mark a portal of entry into the region but also comprise the only opportunity many Native Americans will have to see peyote growing in the ground. Prompting prayers and conversations about 'relations' back home, the shrines kindle many acts of remembrance, both between generations of visitors and between Native Americans and dealers. Moreover, the ways that Native Americans perform actions at the shrines that tie into rituals of thanks, gathering, and healing associated with other places underscores the shrines' surrogate ritual importance. This matters for visitors who cannot access other ritual sites. By anchoring memories and challenging conventional thinking about agency, peyote shrines activate thinking about kindred while extending the ritualists' reach into adjacent spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research studied the factors that tend to influence the engagement of the Pir and shrines during and after the election process. Most Muslims in Toba Tek Singh identify as Pirs and Shrines have had a considerable effect on the region's religious landscape; neither their patronage nor their patrons' loyalty to them has served as a reliable foundation for overt political activity in the area. Shrines and Pirs were closely related to politics in the 21st century. The Shrines and Pirs gave rise to a humanist approach to politics observed in Toba Tek Singh, and through such traditions, local authorities get benefitted politically and economically. The qualitative research methodology is opted in this research by collecting empirical data to produce more relevant findings on a thorough study of electors. This research found out that most individuals strongly believe in the advantages of shrines with their Pirs and routinely visit them to fulfil their sociological, economic, psychological, and spiritual needs. This study insights that, the shrine phenomenon should be further studied at both the macro and micro levels to understand what political dynamics are fostering or enhancing the circumstance of shrine politics to make it less prevalent as it is crucial in affecting voter behavior in elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Alustath is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Shrines, as part of the most magnificent works of Islamic art, not only play an essential role in the social life of cities but also reflect the architecture and arts of their time. Sometimes, these buildings are grouped and have been constructed over various periods. In the present study, the shrine of Al-Kadhimiya is examined. The Al-Kadhimiya shrine complex, located in Baghdad, includes the tombs of two Shiite Imams. The construction of this complex began in the ninth century. The oldest inscription in this collection dates back to 1519 AD. According to historical evidence, the structure was built during the Safavid period. However, the construction rules, proportions, and principles of covering the space, as well as the design of the dome and the surrounding porch, incorporate pre-Safavid (Azeri) and Timurid art styles. This raises the question: how can a comparative study of the dome of the Al-Kadhimiya shrine with similar examples from the Timurid period prove that the change in artistic styles is a gradual process and not necessarily subject to changes in government? Therefore, this study examines the following hypothesis: the historical discontinuation of governments does not directly affect the architectural structures related to the subsequent period, which instead follow a gradual developmental course. This article employs a historical research method and comparative analysis. It compares the Al-Kadhimiya shrine with two complexes: the shrine of the eighth Imam of the Shiites in Mashhad, Iran, and the tomb of Shah Nematullah Vali in Kerman, Iran, as well as other Timurid domes. The results indicate that architectural techniques and structures are not necessarily updated with changes in government but follow a gradual process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the genesis of planning solutions and ceiling designs of Dunhuang cave shrines. Based on the methods of defining features, graphic-and-analytical and system-and-structural analysis, the spread of types of plans and ceilings from dynasty to dynasty has been traced. Using auxiliary methods of historical, mathematical, and comparative analysis, a general picture of the development of the planning structure and constructive schemes of Dunhuang shrines from the Northern Lian period to the Yuan period has been created. By counting the types of plans and ceilings in each period, a group of the most common types of plans was determined: with a combination of larger and smaller rectangles (where the smaller is the altar part of a square or rectangular shape), a plan in the form of a square with a protruding trapezoidal altar, an altar in outline close to a rectangle or trapezoids with rounded corners, a horizontally elongated plan rectangle, based on squares with protrusions. The most common type of ceiling is fu-dou-ding with modifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professional and avocational archaeologists have recovered thousands of perishable artifacts from caves and rockshelters across the southern US Southwest, but few have been radiocarbon dated. This article reviews thirty AMS radiocarbon dates obtained on perishable items from nine shrine caves in the Jornada and Mimbres Mogollon regions of south-central New Mexico and west Texas. Dates were obtained from fragments of tablitas, effigies, prayer sticks, projectile point foreshafts, and flat curved sticks. Several convey iconographic elements of the Jornada Style of rock art while others are implements and weapons, but all were deposited in shrine caves. Problems inherent in the dating of shrine cave deposits and perishable artifacts are reviewed and technical matters involving contamination, curation, context, and sample materials are discussed. Analysis reveals several significant trends, one of the most salient being that the Goggle-eye motif, a signature element of Jornada and Mimbres iconography, has greater antiquity than previously assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a follow-up to the research conducted in 2021 titled James Anta: missionary, martyr, and the unsung hero of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Zimbabwe. The paper was a reconstruction of Anta's life, ministry, and martyrdom. The research found out that although the blood of Anta was the seed of Methodism in Zimbabwe, the church was reluctant to honour him. The research also noted that the Wesleyan Methodist church created a biased history of African cultural epistemology, which has no place for people who die young and unmarried. The paper concluded with a call for the Wesleyan Methodist church to rewrite its historiography, giving space to its martyrs like Anta. After reading the 2021 publication, the Wesleyan Methodist church leadership made urgent actions towards the re-historicization of Methodism in Zimbabwe with Harare West District dubbing its April 2022 Synod as James Anta Synod. The Synod further resolved to name the school they were intending to build after Anta. Moreover, Kadoma District agreed to rename Banket Circuit (where Anta was assassinated) as James Anta Circuit. The Wesleyan Methodist church further erected a monument of Anta and made the site a pilgrimage shrine. The fast responses by the church to honour Anta in 2022 justify their zeal to rewrite their history after 136 years of reluctancy. This paper used both primary and secondary sources to gather data. The paper concludes by challenging missionary churches to honour African agents whose history and sacrifice were seldomly considered and yet they were the key people in the Christianisation of Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presence of an apse was a common architectural feature in early Buddhism. An apsidal ternple associated with an Indian-style Buddhist stupa was recently discovered at Barikot in Pakistant Swat Valley, dating to the time of the great promoter of Buddhism, the Mauryan Emperor AOoka (r. 268-232 BC). The monument was modified from an earlier, non-Buddhist shrine from the time when Alexander the Great besieged Barikot in 327 BC. It suggests the assimilation of pre-Buddhist places of worship in the Gandhara region during the spread of Buddhism from the Indian subcontinent to central Asia and beyond along the Silk Roads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relics and the legends surrounding them are often deeply connected to a monastic community's commemoration of its foundations, patrons, and sacred objects within a framework that deepened their meaning in the present. This article addresses the depiction of Geoffrey Martel, eleventh-century founder of the Benedictine abbey of La Trinité, in the sculptural program of a thirteenth-century stone shrine erected to house the abbey's relics. Despite Geoffrey's historically less-than-virtuous character, the monks commemorated him as a loyal Capetian vassal and valiant crusader who transported from Constantinople to Vendôme a tear shed by Christ at the tomb of Lazarus, known as the Holy Tear, and donated it to La Trinité. Unfurling across the shrine's arch and spandrels, the sculptural program augmented Geoffrey's role in the Holy Tear legend. Comparing the shrine's translatio narrative to a later vernacular poem recounting the legend of the Holy Tear, I contend that shrine and poem were part of a visual and textual culture that grew out of established crusader legends celebrating men who transported relics from the Holy Land and Constantinople to Europe and donated them to monastic foundations. The shrine itself is no longer extant, but a drawing of it remains in one of the portfolios of medieval patrimony commissioned by the seventeenth-century antiquarian François-Roger de Gaignières. While Geoffrey's presence on the shrine has not garnered much scholarly attention, the drawing may be seen as evidence of the monks' success in transforming him from a midlevel member of the French nobility into a great crusader and vassal of the king of France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese classical gardens, an essential part of World Cultural Heritage, are well exemplified by Xishu Garden as a notable branch of this tradition. This research focuses on the San Su Shrine—a quintessential example of Xishu Garden—and explores the application of digital technologies in the commemorative research and quantitative preservation of these gardens. By integrating terrestrial laser scanning and terrestrial digital photogrammetry, we acquired quantitative data and constructed digital models to innovate upon the methodological approach to garden conservation. The innovation of this study is its analysis of Xishu Garden's commemorative spaces through both temporal and spatial dimensions. 1) Temporally, this study examines the evolution and stratification of the garden's commemorative elements across various historical periods. 2) Spatially, it explores the interconnectedness of commemorative elements within the garden's buildings, rockery stones, water landscape and plant landscape. This dual-faceted approach yields novel insights and methods for assessing the universal value of the commemorative aspects of Xishu Garden. Moreover, it promotes the application of digital technology in the study and preservation of Xishu and other Chinese classical gardens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the history of Shintō in colonial Korea from 1910 to 1945. It challenges the notion that Shintō is Japan's indigenous religion and explores its development in relation to Japan's cultural and diplomatic exchange with the West. The article discusses the efforts of the Government-General of Korea to assimilate Koreans and promote Shintō, including the construction of shrines. However, many Koreans did not embrace Shintō, leading to conflicts between the Japanese and Koreans. The article also explores the diverse perspectives among Korean scholars regarding Shintō and its influence on Korean society. Overall, the spread of Shintō in colonial Korea was a complex and contested process. [Extracted from the article]

Pilgrimages are an important part of our intangible heritage. These long journeys, often on foot, can be sensitive to weather, so this study sees pilgrimages as providing an opportunity to look at the way in which changes in climate affect intangible heritage. It examines two important Ethiopian pilgrimages that involve hundreds of thousands who travel each year to Dirre Sheikh Hussein, seen as the country's Mecca, and Lalibela, its Jerusalem. These journeys in the cold season (December–February) often exceed 1000 km in length and expose pilgrims to low temperatures in mountain areas. Our analysis uses daily output data from ERA-5 and CHIRPS for rainfall and temperature across the recent past (1984–2014) and an ensemble of climate models (CMIP6) for the periods 1984–2014 and 2035–2065, to explore changes in nighttime low temperature, daytime high temperature and the potential increase in days of heavy rain in mountain areas. Additionally, we examine the increasing number of very hot days affecting travel to and from Dirre Sheikh Hussein. The pilgrims experience weather events and not long-term average conditions, so extremes and spells of inclement weather can affect their experience. Management plans for the regions have yet to address likely changes to climate at these religious sites, or consider how strategic planning might mitigate their impact on pilgrims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between the end of World War I and the Mecca World Muslim Congress of 1926, Soviet officials and Indian Muslim thinkers imagined the possibilities of a post-imperial world through the Hijaz. The All-India Khilafat Committee (AIKC; established 1919), an organization led by prominent Indian Muslim thinkers, and the Soviet Union promoted competing projects to protect the Hijaz, home to some of Islam's holiest shrines, against European imperialism. Yet, far from limiting themselves to the question of who should rule the Hijaz, the AIKC and the Soviet state engaged in broader debates about religious and social difference, sovereignty, and minority rights. Whereas the AIKC imagined the Hijaz as an international Muslim republic and a place of refuge for Muslims worldwide, Soviet officials contended that the political future of Muslims should only be settled within the framework of ethno-territorial nation-states. Ironically, the programs of both the AIKC and the Soviet state denied the right of self-determination to Hijazis themselves, leaving the region's inhabitants to choose between two forms of external oversight: a Soviet-supported Saudi ethno-territorialism or limited domestic autonomy under the management and inspection of an international Muslim Council. With very few exceptions, past scholarship on the Hijaz in this period has analyzed the region's political fortunes through Saudi statecraft or European colonial influence. However, Soviet and Indian Muslim experimental engagement with the Hijaz ultimately proved just as crucial to the consolidation of Saudi governance over the region. The article arrives at these novel insights by bringing rare Soviet archival documents together with the Urdu proceedings of the AIKC's delegation to the Hijaz, as well as Arabic sources from the period in question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents radiocarbon dates on 29 perishable objects deposited in shrine caves in the Jornada and Mimbres Mogollon regions of far west Texas and southern New Mexico. The dated objects include tablita fragments, effigies, prayer sticks, hafted projectile point foreshafts, and flat curved sticks. Analysis of the dates reveals three significant trends: a particular set of Indigenous ritual practices involving shrine caves in the North American Southwest was of extraordinary temporal depth and continuity; the meanings and material culture associated with shrine caves changed through time; and a signature iconographic expression of Jornada and Mimbres origin cosmologies, the Goggle-eye or "Tlaloc" entity, is older than previously understood. The dating of shrine caves and iconographic motifs provides new insights on early eras of religious expression in the southern Southwest, clarifying both the nature and time depth of foundational cosmologies and providing a deep time perspective for interpretations of how such cosmologies and their material and iconographic expressions changed through time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ḥawliyyaẗ Kulliyyaẗ Al-Adāb: Ǧāmiʿaẗ Binī Sūwaīf is the property of Beni Suef University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The shrines constituted the most sacred places of the Lictor cult. Here, often in monumental constructions enriched with a complex symbolic apparatus, the names of «martyrs» were venerated, public ceremonies were celebrated, involving rituals that ecompassed both religious and civic aspects. These sites were present in almost every Italian city, yet - with few exceptions - they have received limited historiographical attention and have never been the subject of systematic study. This article provides a comprehensive examination of shrines in seven different Lombard cities, based on archival sources and local press, within the interpretative framework offered by studies on political religion in totalitarian regimes and the relationship between the Church and fascism. This approach allows for an overview of the various types of spaces designated as shrines; an exploration of the reasons and functions of these distinctive architectural forms; an analysis of the syncretism between Catholicism and fascist mysticism evident both in iconography and the rituals performed therein; and finally, a reflection on the role of shrines in the public sphere, designed not for esoteric purposes but for the involvement of the masses in fascist liturgy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigates the time-use activities of pilgrims at their religious destination. The time diary was used to describe the behaviour of pilgrims who came on a pilgrimage to the holy shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad (Iran) in sufficient detail to measure the overall duration and continuous records of activities. According to the findings, pilgrims spend most of their time on necessary and religious activities, respectively. Free time and shopping activities were also among their other activities. Pilgrims were categorised into three clusters: Active Pilgrims, Tourist-Pilgrims, and Non-active or Passive Pilgrims. Active Pilgrims are mostly involved in religious activities, while Tourist-Pilgrims engage more in recreational activities after completing necessary activities. Non-active / Passive Pilgrims mostly spend their time on necessities and personal activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a special issue on practices of religious and scholarly knowledge exchange in Southeast Asia and the Caribbean. In both regions, the makings of religion have been informed by unsettling encounters between religious experts on the one hand and academic scholars of, and in, religion on the other. These encounters, we argue, can be revealed and productively analyzed through a focus on sites of learning and exchange, such as schools and universities, temples and monasteries, holy shrines, conferences and workshops, but also texts and archives. At such sites, alternative actors, referred to in this special issue as 'strategic amateurs and accidental experts', often emerge as unexpected agents of religious change. After explaining the central theme and approach, we draw together and synthesize two strands of argument found in the separate articles, respectively the centrality of moral geographies and geographic imaginations to the making of religion and the intriguing role played by performances of expertise, either as a form of gatekeeping in religious communities and institutions or as alternative sources of religious knowledge and authority. The article concludes with a reflective note on the role of scholars in both fortifying and destabilizing understandings of region and religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ark endures not as physical artifact, but as cultural memory and verbal icon embedded in the textual icon of the Bible. This article examines the ark narrative (1 Sam. 4–6) in its various contexts, including its biblical and ancient Near Eastern ones, and posits icons as a profitable heuristic device. I present the ways that the ark and its story respond to ancient Near Eastern tropes and suggest that the reason for the ark's capture lies in the characters' failure to communicate with and obey the deity. My primary contribution lies in reading the narrative alongside its sequel, 1 Samuel 7, which recontextualizes the story by displaying divine power without the ark and retrojecting a Deuteronomistic rationale for the Israelite loss. I also consider its (post-)exilic reception and place it alongside Priestly and Deuteronomic presentations of the ark, which differ in detail but share a common goal, especially when read as part of a single sacred document. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the novel "Succión" by Nicolás Poblete, exploring the meaning of the title and the questions that arise from it. The protagonist, Sarai, decides to help Ingrid's parents, a girl who died in a traffic accident. The article mentions the "animitas," shrines filled with stuffed animals, which have a disturbing effect on people and function as an exchange of favors. The text talks about the substitution of faith and the sacred for mundane elements in modern society, highlighting the overvaluation of physical appearance and the association of money with beauty. It also mentions the relationship between the term "suction" and the search for unlimited satisfaction and pleasure in today's society. [Extracted from the article]

This article analyzes the urban and architectural transformations in the Villa de Guadalupe, the site where the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe originated, in present-day Mexico City, on behalf of Creole architects, urban planners, and clerics. The article argues that members of Mexico City's Creole elite played a critical role in fabricating a fervent cult of a dark-skinned Madonna while orchestrating dramatic changes to the site of the apparitions, which transformed it from a humble Indigenous village into the religious and spiritual heart of New Spain. The essay focuses its attention on the town's urban and architectural changes during the eighteenth century, which is when the village of Guadalupe was transformed into a veritable "villa", a special designation for an urban establishment in the early modern Hispanic world, which vested it with certain legal autonomy. The story of the urban and architectural transformations and innovations at this site is fascinating, given the ambition on behalf of Mexico City's Creoles to appropriate it and its success in promoting it as the source of Mexico City's and New Spain's claims to exceptionality by divine designation. The Virgin Mary's appearances to a humble young Indigenous man in an impoverished Native village near Mexico City, which became the spiritual center of New Spain, became a potent narrative wielded by the Creole elite, as they sought to assert their political claims in the face of staunch opposition from Spanish-born administrators and clergy. At the Villa de Guadalupe, as this essay reveals, Creole elites tested their political, urban planning, and architectural skills, asserting their cultural and political relevance in 18th-century Mexico City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the resurgence of contemporary Sufi communities in Islamic and Western settings. Focusing on the descendants and followers of Shaykh ʿAqīl al-Manbijī, a medieval spiritual master and saint (d. 1155) in their Syrian homeland and Cambridge, Ontario, the examination offers insights into the confluence of three dimensions. The first refers to the hagiographical and historical traditions that perpetuate the memory and legacy of the long-gone shaykh and nourish the sacrality of his shrine. The second highlights the significance of the rituals performed by communities of the shaykh's descendants and their followers in Syria to revitalise the spiritual tradition that centres on him and evoke a sense of collective identity. The third dimension, spatiality, fleshes out the role of the devotional spaces as arenas for commemorating the venerated shaykh and manifesting the beliefs and traditions that hold the homeland communities together. The form and location of the mosque established by his descendants in Cambridge and its use as a public devotional space and an Islamic learning centre allow us to see how the saint's memory is inscribed, his spiritual tradition perpetuated and disseminated as an integral part of Islamic religiosity in a Western environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents selected aspects of Marian pilgrimages in the context of lived Catholicism in Poland. Lived Catholic Mariology is a concept introduced in this paper and discussed in terms of the intimate as well as communal relationships people establish with Mary through and in various rituals (e.g., pilgrimages), sites (e.g., shrines) and objects (e.g., images). Links between materializing Mary through images; affective, sensual and corporeal religious experiences; and community bonding are presented. They are discussed by drawing on approaches that refer to material religion, religion as mediation, concepts of sensational forms, and aesthetic formations. When examining the centrality of Marian images in Polish pilgrimage practices, this paper focuses on earlier developments, especially (1) those connected with the growth of Marian shrines during the Counter Reformation period and (2) the role played by traditional and innovative Marian pilgrimages during the Communist period in Poland (1945–1989). The final part of the paper refers to the recent changes connected with political polarization of Polish society, the process of radicalization through right-wing discourses that embrace Marian imagery and pilgrimages, the decline of Roman Catholicism and Catholic practices among Poles, and emerging alternative currents relating to Mary and pilgrimages in religious and secular contexts. Referring to various historical and current examples, this paper proposes seeing pilgrimages through the lived religion approach with a focus on materiality and mediatory dimension of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1748, an image of Our Lady of Sorrows brought from Mexico by Marcos Torres, an Indiano born in Tenerife who made his fortune in New Spain, was enthroned with a festivity and sermon. The image of the Virgin was accompanied by a stuffed crocodile that can still be seen in the shrine. Torres claimed the Virgin saved him from the crocodile in Mexico and the animal became an extreme form of exvoto, an allegory, reminding him and fellow countrymen of the dangers and perils of becoming rich in the New World. The material history of these sacred objects transformed this singular Canarian shrine filled with American objects of devotion and local pieces. I explore how the material history of sacred objects can reveal information about their devotion, but also the circumstances surrounding them. In this case, the perils of transatlantic travel and American landscape for a foreigner as the Indiano, and how this materiality was explained and recontextualized in a new setting, reconfigured as a hybrid space hosting American devotions and peculiar exvotos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the shrine of St. David, the patron saint of Wales, within St. Davids cathedral, focusing on its architectural history, the cult surrounding it since the thirteenth century, and accounts of the monument from antiquarian sources. It discusses the monument's location, architectural features, and its significance in the context of the cathedral's history and religious practices.

This study assesses how sustainable tourism management is implemented in selected Philippine Marian Shrines, managed by religious congregations. In conducting the study, the researchers used a qualitative case study approach, as the data were collected using Focus Group Discussion (FGD). The study's key informants (n=27) are the stakeholders of the two selected study sites. These include the congregation, staff members, tourism-related business owners, Barangay government representatives, local police officers, and local tourism representatives. The Repertory Grid methodology was utilised to analyse the data gathered. From the findings, the researchers developed the I.T.S.P. (Immersion, Tutelage, Stewardship, and Proposition): Sustainable Religious Tourism Development Framework based on the viewpoints of the key informants regarding the existing situation of the shrines during their daily operations before and during the pandemic and under the new normal condition. The study's findings, as recommended by the researchers, can be used by the governing authorities of the Marian Shrines as guide in establishing the shrines as sustainable tourist destinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the history of bicycles – one of the most common technologies – in Acholiland, northern Uganda. Bicycles are among the most common means of transportation in this region, where people are recovering from a brutal armed conflict between the Ugandan government and the rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (1987–2006). People who own bicycles in Acholiland often speak of them as local objects. Some owners have even given their bicycles indigenous names. Others have modified their bicycles to fit their worldviews, radically changing the appearance of the bicycles. Examining the history of this ubiquitous technology in northern Uganda unlocks stories of everyday peoples previously unknown to scholars. This article recounts stories of the diffusion of technology in the region, the spread of Christianity and colonial rule, and, most importantly, the domestication of foreign technologies – making them uniquely African. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study endeavors to explore the predicament associated with spaces lacking distinctive character and identity, ultimately resulting in the estrangement of shrines from their peripheral surroundings. Focusing on Mashhad, renowned as the holiest city in Iran and a site of numerous interventions, this research employs it as a case study. The central inquiry revolves around establishing a coherent nexus between the notion of polarity and the intellectual foundations shaping the development of environs surrounding holy shrines. The core objective is to discern the alignment of contemporary advancements around these shrines with their initial conceptual underpinnings. Employing a qualitative approach, this research adopts a descriptive method rooted in the case study framework. The outcomes derived from statistical analysis and the application of space syntax techniques reveal that extensive interventions encircling the shrine of Imam Reza have significantly disrupted the city's connectivity with the shrine. This disruption has led to the displacement of residents, severed emotional ties with the surrounding fabric, and a perceptible attenuation of the sense of place, culminating in the erosion of the genius loci or spirit of place. Furthermore, an examination of the fabric of this separation underscores an anti-Shiite intellectual basis, demonstrating incongruence with the ideal of human communion with "the perfect man." In light of these findings, it is proposed that development initiatives in Islamic cities should prioritize considerations aligned with the intellectual foundations governing city construction. This emphasis is crucial for sustaining the inherent character and spirit of the place amidst developmental endeavors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Exploring Shinto" edited by Michael Pye provides a comprehensive overview of the history and development of Shinto in Japan. The book is divided into three sections that cover contemporary Shinto, the interaction between Shinto and Buddhism, and the diversity of Sect Shinto. The authors explore various aspects of Shinto, including its definition, the role of shrines and associations, and its connection to the imperial family. While the book offers valuable insights into Shinto, some readers may find it lacking in discussions of contemporary practices and the role of women in Shinto. Additionally, the focus on the interaction between Shinto and Buddhism may overshadow other aspects of Shinto. [Extracted from the article]

A remarkable thirteenth-century reliquary shrine of Saint Odilia kept in the Church of Saint Odulphus in Borgloon (Belgium) – notably the oldest dated example of panel paintings in the Low Countries – has been the topic of several art historical studies. These studies attempt to unravel the iconography of the painted panels, indicating how they should be interpreted, and in which order. The difficulty of this, however, lies in the fact that the reliquary shrine has been fully overpainted but also dramatically modified in the seventeenth century to fit into a smaller location. In the process, the original roof panels were modified, with sawn-off elements lost to time. The reliquary shrine, commissioned by the Order of the Holy Cross in Huy (Belgium) in 1292, depicts multiple scenes, on all sides, that illustrate the life of Saint Odilia. Scholars have regularly drawn on published legends of Odilia from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but no consensus on the source of the images has ever been reached. The current article, however, draws attention to a much earlier, fifteenth-century manuscript of the legend of Saint Odilia that is kept in the library of the University of Liège. The manuscript, written by Wolterus of Nijmegen in 1467 with references to an even older version from 1291, has rarely been associated with the reliquary shrine, but it is of vital importance for the analysis and interpretation of the paintings. In bringing this version of the legend of Saint Odilia together with recent material-technical research carried out at the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA) in Brussels, a new iconographic analysis and reconstruction of the reliquary shrine is presented here. It can now be verified that each panel had to be read from left to right, with the first roof scene with the arrival of the virgins in Rome originally positioned above the murder scene in Cologne. The second scene on the roof, where Saint Ursula receives the Pope's blessing, was placed above the excavation and translation of Odilia's relics. Additionally, the depiction of Saint Ursula with a banner can be seen as a highly unusual example of panel painting in the Low Countries, and it probably even shows the oldest depiction of the Pope in relation to the Saint Ursula cult. Finally, this study shows how the shrine was used: each pilgrim was given the opportunity to experience the legendary life of Saint Odilia in chronological order by walking around the reliquary shrine not once, but twice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research deals with studying the important architecture works of the sultan Abdulhameed the second 1867-1909 in Baghdad .the research specializes with seven famous status that they had renewed at the last nineteenth century or at the beginning of twentieth .it documents these status by analytics descriptive study depends on visiting that is clear by diagrams and photos ,in addition to studying scenes and writings which kept these status historically to be subject of the study trying to save them from destruction or changing by some authorities for modern.This study arrives to results that pleases the researcher to be benefit in the field of specialist academic study of the late islamic archeology describing them to document important status in Baghdad and to describe religious archeology in Baghdad to make them series of recorded mosques and shrines in the field of archeology