Incredible Must See Sacred Places

Where is your sacred place? What is a sacred place to you? For those of us living in modern times, a sacred place might literally be a house of worship, such as a church or synagogue. Or it might be more personal, such as a beach where we go to meditate, to contemplate our purpose on this earth. Or a quiet room in our house that we have decorated with personal treasures, mementoes and perhaps even an altar of tribute to a loved one now gone.

The ancients were way ahead of us; it was they who started this “trend” and it continues in many forms to this day. Part of their need to establish sacred places and often to erect temples or other buildings where they could honour their gods (in the case of ancient Egyptians, those gods took human form in the physical presences of the pharaohs) was based in fear.

That might sound contradictory; shouldn’t a place of worship, a sacred place, be one of peace and piousness? Remember that back in ancient times, the human population had little science. Certainly there were elements they had figured out, specifically (and thankfully for future generations), they had architecture — more a mathematical approach than scientific. But because science was limited in capacity, the ancients looked to magic to figure out scientific elements of nature.

For example, how could they explain a lunar eclipse? Or a thunderstorm? Or even the passing of the seasons? They not only wrote off these “phenomena” as being the works of the gods, they believed that to prevent calamity, they had to honour the gods, appease them, to protect themselves from the wrath of what they believed were the causes.

By designating sacred places and erecting temples of worship, they were not appeasing any entity, but their innocence left for posterity a collection of amazing sacred places for us to marvel at and appreciate.