| # | Polity | Ceremonial Site | Tags | Year(s) | Edit | Desc |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Kivas – a built space used for ceremonies, rites, political meetings, or spiritual gatherings – began to be present by the mid-1100s, when the connection to peoples in the area now known as Mexico weakened and they were trading and influenced more by their Pueblo neighbours.
[1]
[1]: Barnhart 2018: 144. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/VPVHH2HJ |
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The following suggests that the only type of site that has been identified are homesteads. “For the first 400 years of the settlement’s history, Kirikongo was a single economically generalized social group (Figure 6). The occupants were self-sufficient farmers who cultivated grains and herded livestock, smelted and forged iron, opportunistically hunted, lived in puddled earthen structures with pounded clay floors, and fished in the seasonal drainages. [...] Since Kirikongo did not grow (at least not significantly) for over 400 years, it is likely that extra-community fissioning continually occurred to contribute to regional population growth, and it is also likely that Kirikongo itself was the result of budding from a previous homestead. However, with the small scale of settlement, the inhabitants of individual homesteads must have interacted with a wider community for social and demographic reasons. [...] It may be that generalized single-kin homesteads like Kirikongo were the societal model for a post-LSA expansion of farming peoples along the Nakambe (White Volta) and Mouhoun (Black Volta) River basins. A homestead settlement pattern would fit well with the transitional nature of early sedentary life, where societies are shifting from generalized reciprocity to more restricted and formalized group membership, and single-kin communities like Kirikongo’s house (Mound 4) would be roughly the size of a band.”
[1]
[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 27, 32) |
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Earlier work suggested these were present, but more recently have been argued to be likely absent. Huffman’s earlier work suggested that some of the enclosures were sites specifically for the conduct of rituals, but later work has suggested that this was not the case, these sites simply being rulers’ dwellings from different periods. “Huffman concluded that the… Eastern Enclosure served as a ritual centre. The Great Enclosure in the valley was interpretated as a centre for initiation…. Beach… made recourse to Shona ethnography and history of political succession to argue that the ruler’s residences had more likely changed during Great Zimbabwe’s 200-year fluorescence. Thus the Great Enclosure was not an initiation centre nor were the valley enclosures residences for royal wives: they were centres adopted by successive rulers…. The thesis of changing rulers’ residences is adequately supported by the distribution of material culture…. Although the dates of the assemblages change, there is a remarkable similarity in the range of objects and activities carried out in the earlier and later enclosures.”
[1]
[1]: (Chirikure & Pikirayi 2008, 988-989) Shadreck Chirikure & Innocent Pikirayi, “Inside and Outside the Dry Stone Walls: Revisiting the Material Culture of Great Zimbabwe,” in Antiquity Vol. 82 (2008): 976-993. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/UKSEXXIH/collection |
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Mosques.
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Churches, cathedrals, abbeys.
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Lenin Mausoleum, monumental tomb in Moscow holding the embalmed body of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. It was designed by Alexei Shchusev and completed in 1930.
The Lenin Mausoleum occupies an ambiguous position among great architectural structures. To some, the highly polished, ziggurat-like mausoleum is an eternal reminder of a past better forgotten; to others, it is an immortal monument to a cherished history and triumphant leader. Shchusev (1873–1949) was commissioned to design and build the mausoleum in a short space of time, and initially he erected a temporary wooden structure near the Kremlin wall in Moscow’s Red Square, where the stone tomb is now located. [1] [1]: Lenin Mausoleum | History, Description, & Facts | Britannica,” last modified October 13, 2023, accessed November 24, 2023, https://www.britannica.com/place/Lenin-Mausoleum. Zotero link: 6PETPZ7Z |
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"Apart from settlement sites, there are a few sites containing deliberately positioned stone arrangements combined with clay vessels and occasionally terracotta fragments (Rupp 2010: 71). Some of them are suggested to represent burials and are discussed below. Other sites contain large parts of one or more terracotta sculptures which were mostly intentionally deposited. In the case of Utak Kamuan Garaje Kagoro (Rupp 2014b), no settlement site has been found in the vicinity suggesting that ritual sites were located away from inhabited areas in remote and isolated places and are thus rarely discovered."
[1]
[1]: (Breunig and Ruppe 2016: 249) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/ES4TRU7R. |
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"Apart from settlement sites, there are a few sites containing deliberately positioned stone arrangements combined with clay vessels and occasionally terracotta fragments (Rupp 2010: 71). Some of them are suggested to represent burials and are discussed below. Other sites contain large parts of one or more terracotta sculptures which were mostly intentionally deposited. In the case of Utak Kamuan Garaje Kagoro (Rupp 2014b), no settlement site has been found in the vicinity suggesting that ritual sites were located away from inhabited areas in remote and isolated places and are thus rarely discovered."
[1]
[1]: (Breunig and Ruppe 2016: 249) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/ES4TRU7R. |
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Religious shrines to the Mwari cult known to have been present. “…as the Changamires built their own kingdom, known as Rozvi… the influence of the Mwari institution also spread. People such as the Manyika and Ndau in the east began sending delegations to the Mwari shrines, which are found only in the Matopo Hills in the core Rozvi area…. The Manyika say that they [presently, as of the date of publication] go to the Mwari shrines when their own tutelary spirits prove inadequate for rainmaking.”
[1]
.
[1]: (Waite 1987, 202) Gloria Waite, “Public Health in Pre-Colonial East-Central Africa,” in Social Science & Medicine Vol. 24, No. 3 (1987): 197-208. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/N4Z9DU9S/item-list |
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Saint Basil’s Cathedral: Officially known as the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat, this iconic church is located in the Red Square in Moscow. It was built from 1555 to 1561 on orders from Ivan the Terrible and is one of the most recognizable symbols of Russia.
[1]
[1]: “Покровский Собор,” accessed December 13, 2023, https://en.shm.ru/museum/hvb/. Zotero link: KC49NTK6 |
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Saint Basil’s Cathedral: Officially known as the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat, this iconic church is located in the Red Square in Moscow. It was built from 1555 to 1561 on orders from Ivan the Terrible and is one of the most recognizable symbols of Russia.
[1]
[1]: “Покровский Собор,” accessed December 13, 2023, https://en.shm.ru/museum/hvb/. Zotero link: KC49NTK6 |
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“The sustained Tamil impetus to wholesale temple renovation may also be partly responsible for the limited number of surviving structural monument from the far south in Pandyanadu before the twelfth, or even sixteenth, centuries. The region is well known for the many substantial rock-cut caves with monumental sculpture, but though ruled over by the Pandyans from their capital of Madurai from the sixth to the early fourteenth centuries as contemporaries of the Cholas there are very few surviving structural temples from this period in Pandyanadu compared with the Kaveri region.”
[1]
[1]: (Branfoot 2013, 46) Branfoot, Crispin 2013. ‘Remaking the past: Tamil sacred landscape and temple renovations’. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. Vol 76: 1. Pp. 21-47. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/392CRT4K/collection |
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Abdul Hakim was said to have introduced Islam to Jimma and converted the first king, Abba Jifar to Islam in 1830 CE. “Abdul Hakim settled in Jiren, near the palace of the king. His tomb (k’ubba)is still venerated by the religious.”
[1]
[1]: (Lewis 2001, 42) Lewis, Herbert S. 2001. Jimma Abba Jifar, an Oromo Monarchy: Ethiopia, 1830-1932. Lawrenceville, New Jersey: The Red Sea Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/NRZVWSCD/collection |
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The honouring of Islamic saints is a big part of Somali society. “Their tombs, which dot the country side, are frequently the sites of annual religious celebrations held to commemorate the life and works of the deceased saint.”
[1]
[1]: (Cassanelli 1982, 120) Cassanelli, Lee. V. 1982. The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600-1900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TKPH7Z89/library |
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“Saints are historical personalities widely respected and even venerated by Somalis for their personal piety, miraculous works, or contribution to the spread of Islamic learning. Their tombs, which dot the countryside, are frequently the sites of annual religious celebrations held to commemorate the life and work of the deceased saint.”
[1]
[1]: (Cassanelli 1982, 120) Cassanelli, Lee. 1982. The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600-1900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Lee/titleCreatorYear/items/TKPH7Z89/item-list |
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“The original inhabitants were of Sidama stock; but although it was invaded by the Galla in the sixteenth century, the kingdom is said to have been founded by a Somali from Mogadishu. This man, Nur Husain, otherwise known as Wariko, was a worker of miracles: he could fly like an eagle, and could change men into animals […] To Wariko, however, a tomb has been assigned on the bank of the Dadesa, and Cecchi was told that it was an object of veneration.”
[1]
[1]: (Beckingham and Huntingford 1954, lxxxix) Beckingham, C.F. and Huntingford, G.W.B. 1954. Some Records of Ethiopia, 1593-1646. London: Hakluyt Society. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/F86ZNREM/collection |
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The honouring of Islamic saints is a big part of Somali society. “Their tombs, which dot the country side, are frequently the sites of annual religious celebrations held to commemorate the life and works of the deceased saint.”
[1]
[1]: (Cassanelli 1982, 120) Cassanelli, Lee. V. 1982. The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600-1900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TKPH7Z89/library |
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“L. Traversi’s text thus testifies to what, in the eyes of the local authorities and the Muslim community of this part of Ifat, constituted the historical and memorial heritage of the region at the end of the 19th century: two ruined cities, one linked to a certain ‘Sharif Ali’ considered at the time as a sultan, son of Sa’d al-Din, and whose tomb was celebrated, the other to a certain ‘Ras Alis’.”
[1]
[1]: (Fauvelle et al. 2017, 239-295) Fauvelle, François-Xavier et al. 2007. “The Sultanate of Awfāt, its Capital and the Necropolis of the Walasma”, Annales Islamologiques. Vol. 51. Pp 239-295. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/HJCMAMX7/library |
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Places of worship. Churches, cathedrals, abbeys etc.
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Places of worship. Churches, cathedrals, abbeys etc.
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The honouring of Islamic saints is a big part of Somali society. “Their tombs, which dot the country side, are frequently the sites of annual religious celebrations held to commemorate the life and works of the deceased saint.”
[1]
[1]: (Cassanelli 1982, 120) Cassanelli, Lee. V. 1982. The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600-1900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TKPH7Z89/library |
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“The holy men stimulated practices of saint veneration and visits to their centers and tombs, which again led to the emergence of local cults.”
[1]
[1]: (Loimeier 2013, 150) Loimeier, Roman. 2013. Muslim Societies in Africa: A Historical Anthropology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/HJTAUHA9/collection |
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“There are 356 holy sites within Harar’s walls, mainly tombs of emirs, religious preachers, and descendants of clerics who founded the city in the thirteenth century. Pilgrimage to these tombs was not necessarily connected to Sufi Ziyara tradition and was more a central custom in the daily lives of most city residents, regardless of gender, status, and ethnic background.”
[1]
[1]: (Ben-Dror 2018, 15) Ben-Dror, Avishai. 2018. Emirate, Egyptian, Ethiopian: Colonial Experiences in Late Nineteenth-Century Harar. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/CHS87GBI/collection |
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“The family of a dead man dig a circular hole close the Kabare round which they gather to pray, afterwards decorating the grave with branches or palm fronds.”
[1]
[1]: (Thesiger 1935, 10) Thesiger, Wifred. 1935. ‘The Awash River and the Aussa Sultanate.’ The Geographical Journal. Vol. 85:1. Pp 1-19 Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/APBB7BBK/library |
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“Saints are historical personalities widely respected and even venerated by Somalis for their personal piety, miraculous works, or contribution to the spread of Islamic learning. Their tombs, which dot the countryside, are frequently the sites of annual religious celebrations held to commemorate the life and work of the deceased saint.”
[1]
[1]: (Cassanelli 1982, 120) Cassanelli, Lee. 1982. The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600-1900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Lee/titleCreatorYear/items/TKPH7Z89/item-list |
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“Ibini Ukpabi known as and called Chukwu okike Abiama (God the creator of wonders) was said to be found in a cave and, strategically residing by a waterfall in one of Aro villages. The site created some amount of mysterious interpretations and awe around the oracle of Ibini Ukpabi. Aro gradually earned the suffix Chukwu and started being known as and called Arochukwu, almost making Aro Okigbo and other praise name less prominent. Why this became possible is simple to understand. Ndi Igbo from all walks of life went to Aro to consult “God” and simply explained that they went to Aro-Chukwu. Presently the word is no longer Aro-chukwu but Arochukwu”
[1]
[1]: Innocent, Rev. (2020). A Critical Study on the Ibini Ukpabi (Arochukwu Long Juju) Oracle and its Implications on the International Relations During the 20th Century. London Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences, 20(10): 6. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZXZGZSM3/collection |
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“Besides fields and villages, the royal roadside was dotted with religious shrines. Forbes counted more than 60 in just the last quarter-mile before reaching Abomey. These usually consisted of mud huts or thatched sheds containing wooden or clay images; Europeans called them fetish houses. In traveling the road, Beecroft "came upon numbers of Fetish Houses neatly built of Red Clay and Sand, all in the Vicinity clean and neat, beautifully ornamented with Trees." Burton, too, remarked on the cleanliness and neatness of certain places cleared for worshipers. Other shrines were crossbars between poles-Burton and Skertchly called them "gallows"-and sacred trees."’ One religious complex was dedicated to Legba, the ithyphallic deity who served as intermediary between mankind and the other gods, and could both do evil and protect worshipers against it. Europeans often confused him with the devil: Bouit called Legba’s abode on the royal road the king’s "Maison du Diable." Burton noticed a shrine to another priapic god called Bo, "Legba on a larger scale," who protected brave soldiers. Several shrines contained the "fetishes" of military units, including the elite Bru (or Blue) "company" of the male troops and the Fanti "company" of the "amazons." One holy place was dedicated, unexpectedly, to a sea god, another to a goddess presiding over childbirth. Skertchly saw a pot-topped earthen mound consecrated to Aizan, a deity said to protect roads from evil spirits and keep them in repair. He also saw a "fetiche-place" reserved exclusively, he said, for the crown prince because the resident deity "impart[ed] the power of governing." The most important shrines were attended by priests, who dwelled nearby. One of the highest-ranking priests, the Agasun-no, called Dahomey’s Archbishop of Canterbury by Burton, had his "country palace" along the royal road." Perhaps the holiest roadside site was called the Adan-gbno-ten, meaning swearing place. Burton said the king stopped there before re-entering Abomey from Cana "to receive the oaths of fidelity, and to hear the brave talk of his high officials, especially the military."" Skertchly agreed on the spelling, but said the Adan-gbno-ten was where the king "repeat[ed] his coronation oath" when traveling between Abomey and Cana.”
[1]
[1]: Alpern, S. B. (1999). Dahomey’s Royal Road. History in Africa, 26, 11–24: 18–19.https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J4ZASAV6/collection |
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“Burials of important people such as lamaan (lineage chief), saltigue (rainmaker) and kumax (leader of the male initiation society) involved several villages and ages, resulting in impressive earthen tumuli several metres high. The deceased was buried with his or her utilitarian possessions, and offerings were deposited on top of the graves.”
[1]
“Ethnographic and ethnohistorical literature indicate that Sereer, Wolof, and Mande speakers practiced tumuli burials until the 16th and 17th centuries, but only the Sereer continued to do so in more recent historical periods.”
[2]
[1]: (Thiaw 2013, 100) Thiaw, Ibrahima. 2013. ‘From the Senegal River to Siin: The Archaeology of Sereer Migrations in North-Western Senegambia. In Migration and Membership Regimes in Global and Historical Perspectives. Edited by Ulbe Bosma. Leiden: Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Q2ZFJKTJ/collection [2]: (Thiaw 2013, 102) Thiaw, Ibrahima. 2013. ‘From the Senegal River to Siin: The Archaeology of Sereer Migrations in North-Western Senegambia. In Migration and Membership Regimes in Global and Historical Perspectives. Edited by Ulbe Bosma. Leiden: Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Q2ZFJKTJ/collection |
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“Burials of important people such as lamaan (lineage chief), saltigue (rainmaker) and kumax (leader of the male initiation society) involved several villages and ages, resulting in impressive earthen tumuli several metres high. The deceased was buried with his or her utilitarian possessions, and offerings were deposited on top of the graves.”
[1]
“Ethnographic and ethnohistorical literature indicate that Sereer, Wolof, and Mande speakers practiced tumuli burials until the 16th and 17th centuries, but only the Sereer continued to do so in more recent historical periods.”
[2]
[1]: (Thiaw 2013, 100) Thiaw, Ibrahima. 2013. ‘From the Senegal River to Siin: The Archaeology of Sereer Migrations in North-Western Senegambia. In Migration and Membership Regimes in Global and Historical Perspectives. Edited by Ulbe Bosma. Leiden: Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Q2ZFJKTJ/collection [2]: (Thiaw 2013, 102) Thiaw, Ibrahima. 2013. ‘From the Senegal River to Siin: The Archaeology of Sereer Migrations in North-Western Senegambia. In Migration and Membership Regimes in Global and Historical Perspectives. Edited by Ulbe Bosma. Leiden: Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Q2ZFJKTJ/collection |
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Churches. “By 1870, when the Hawaiian Evangelical Association observed with a great jubilee celebration the fiftieth anniversary of the coming of the first group of missionaries, there were fifty-eight churches in the association, with a membership of 14,850, approximately one-fourth of the whole population of the kingdom.”
[1]
[1]: (Kuykendall 1938: 100) Kuykendall, Ralph Simpson. 1938. The Hawaiian Kingdom. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii. http://archive.org/details/hawaiiankingdom0002kuyk. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/QJ4Z7AAB |
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“Burials of important people such as lamaan (lineage chief), saltigue (rainmaker) and kumax (leader of the male initiation society) involved several villages and ages, resulting in impressive earthen tumuli several metres high. The deceased was buried with his or her utilitarian possessions, and offerings were deposited on top of the graves.”
[1]
“Ethnographic and ethnohistorical literature indicate that Sereer, Wolof, and Mande speakers practiced tumuli burials until the 16th and 17th centuries, but only the Sereer continued to do so in more recent historical periods.”
[2]
[1]: (Thiaw 2013, 100) Thiaw, Ibrahima. 2013. ‘From the Senegal River to Siin: The Archaeology of Sereer Migrations in North-Western Senegambia. In Migration and Membership Regimes in Global and Historical Perspectives. Edited by Ulbe Bosma. Leiden: Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Q2ZFJKTJ/collection [2]: (Thiaw 2013, 102) Thiaw, Ibrahima. 2013. ‘From the Senegal River to Siin: The Archaeology of Sereer Migrations in North-Western Senegambia. In Migration and Membership Regimes in Global and Historical Perspectives. Edited by Ulbe Bosma. Leiden: Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Q2ZFJKTJ/collection |
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During the king’s or brak’s enthronement ceremony he visited the tomb of his ancestors. “Once in Jurbel, the brak was led straight to the mound of earth, the jal or tumulus of his family meen, where he was coronated.”
[1]
[1]: (Barry 2012, 41) Barry, Boubacar. 2012. The Kingdom of Waalo: Senegal Before the Conquest. New York: Diasporic Africa Press. Seshat URL:https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/9KV5MEKN/collection |
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Shrine. “The relief very likely represents a local legend associated with the village Govindaputtur on the northern bank of the river Kollidam (Coleroon) in Tamil Nadu. An ancient Saiva shrine, it was visited by Appar and Sambandar, two important Saiva saints who may have lived in the seventh century. Both recorded the local tradition of a cow attaining salvation at Govindaputtur by adorning the Sivalinga of the local temple known as Tiruvijayamangai.”
[1]
[1]: (Pal 1988, 259) Pal, Pratapadiya. 1988. Indian Sculpture: 700-1800 Vol. 2. Berkeley: University of California Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/GI668E2K/collection |
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“The Ajuran established a theocratic Islamic state based on Sharia law with its headquarters at Marka or Merca on the Indian Ocean, and the royal residence at Mungiye, about 75 miles south of Mogadishu. Marka was the home of a number of revered sheikhs, including the Afarta Aw Usman (“the four famous sheikhs named Osman”): Aw Usman Markayale, who is not only venerated in Marka, but also has a mosque named after him with a small underground chamber that, according to popular belief, formed part of a corridor that led directly to the Ka’ba in the holy city of Makkah; Aw Usman Garweyne, whose shrine is on the island of Gendershe, 20 miles north of Marka; Aw Usman Makki of Dhanane; and Aw Usman Bauasan of Jazira. Thus, Marka for the Ajuran is a religious sanctuary, and is called even today “Marka Aw Usman” (Marka, home of Osmans). At the top of the Ajuran hierarchy was the imam, a title used only by Shi‘ite Islamic administrations.”
[1]
[1]: (Mukhtar 2016, Encyclopedia of Empire) Mukhtar, Mohamed H. 2016. ‘Ajuran Sultanate.’ In J. Mackenzie Encyclopedia of Empire. Wiley. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5U3NQRMR/library |
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The following quote suggests that shrines of saints were important pilgrimage sites and were likely present in the Carnatic Sultanate. “The most significant aspect of South Indian Islam, however, is that it was predominantly influenced by Sufi mysticism. The Sufis were not as bound by doctrinal formalism as the Sunnis or the Shi’ites but were concerned with an individual, mystic devotionalism which made it easy to adapt to the existing religious environment of South India. Sufi mysticism was characterized on the one hand by centres of learning, poetry, science, and on the other hand by the centrality of the pir or saint. The saint’s devotees assembled at his shrine to partake in the sacred power which abounded in the area, thus falling into the existing tradition of sacred places and the importance of pilgrimage.”
[1]
[1]: (Bugge, 2020) Bugge, Henriette. 2020. Mission and Tamil Society: Social and Religious Change in South India (1840-1900). London: Routledge Curzon. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/9SKWNUF4/collection |
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Cemeteries; churches. Cemeteries throughout the entire region and polity duration. Anglo-Saxon cemeteries have been found dating from as early as 425 CE.
[1]
[2]
[1]: (Higham 2004: 6) Higham, Nick. ‘From Sub-Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England: Debating the Insular Dark Ages’, History Compass 2, no. 1 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2004.00085.x. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XZT7A79K [2]: (Yorke 1990: 7) York, Barbara. 1990. Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203447307. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/YXTNCWJN |
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Churches, cemeteries etc.
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Churches, cathedrals, abbeys.
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“Onwuejeogwu states that (1981:114 & 87) “in the first level only the temple of Uga was formed. It was the temple of Eri, in Aguleri. All successors to the throne of Eze Nri must visit the temple of Uga during the coronation to perform the rituals of presentation, re-enactment and integration”, and this is done “in order to receive blessings from Eri and to collect a lump of clay brought from the bottom of the Anambra river which would be used for making the shrine of Nri, Menri”. He argues that “the political significance of the temple is generally uppermost in the minds of the Nri traditional elite, the ozo titled men” and it is during this period the Ikolo – “Ufie sacred music sound/played day and night for one year in the Kings palace” (Onwuejeogwu, 1981:114 & 87-88).”
[1]
Nri seems to have had well-established trade networks even quite early on, so it’s reasonable to assume the presence of markets throughout the area. “The Igbo-Ukwu excavations suggested that the institution of sacred kingship, which still flourishes at Nr and among the riverain and western Igbo, was much older than could have been deduced from oral tradition alone. The finds yielded evidence of a hitherto unsuspected involvement in international trade, hundreds of miles from the southern termini of the Saharan routes: there was a great treasury of beads, some of glass and some of carnelian, many of which seem to have originated in Venice and India. Much research has been devoted to the raw materials used in the sculptures: tin bronze and leaded tin bronze, which may have been obtained in ancient mines in Abakaliki in eastern Igboland.”
[2]
[1]: Madukasi, F. C. (2021). Otutunzu Shrine: The Sacred Temple for Ritual Coronation of Igbo Monarchs and Hegemonic Endeavours in Traditional Religion. International Journal of Social Science and Human Research, 04(03): 438. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/6UV94AVD/collection [2]: Isichei, Elizabeth. A History of African Societies to 1870. Cambridge University Press, 1997: 247. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Z4GK27CI/collection |
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Churches, cathedrals, cemeteries, large-scale event buildings such as Westminster Abbey.
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Churches and cathedrals. “Houses around the Old Town Hall, the palace of the lords of Kunštát, parts of the university residences and a number of churches of the time provide indices of an extraordinary amount of construction activity, influenced by western architecture. Gothic cathedrals were built in a number of towns (Brno, Olomouc, Hradec Králové, Plzeň and elsewhere), as well as in the subject towns (foremost of which was Český Krumlov, which belonged to the Rožmberks).”
[1]
[1]: (Pánek and Oldřich 2009: 146) Pánek, Jaroslav and Oldřich, Tůma. 2009. A History of the Czech Lands. University of Chicago Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/4NAX9KBJ |
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Temples. “Excavation and restoration of the Semisubterranean Temple, done by the CIAT in the early 1960s, exposed the entire sunken court and the 322 tenon-heads that are attached to the walls. A drainage canal was also identified at the base of the walls. According to Ponce, the sunken court represented the underworld, inhabited by spirits of the dead. The tenon-heads probably depicted different ethnic groups, not supernatural beings.”
[1]
In Tiwanaku, the moat, which once encompassed most of the early city, now largely enclosed spaces serving an expanding and more powerful elite class. Among new constructions were monumental temples, palaces, elaborate courtyards associated with elite-sponsored ceremonies, and entire specialized residential compounds dedicated to the preparation and sponsorship of feasts.”
[2]
[1]: (Albarracin-Jordan 1999: 60) Albarracin-Jordan, Juan V. 1999. The Archeaology of Tiwanaku: The Myths, History, and Science of an Ancient Andean Civilization. Bolivia: Impresión P.A.P. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/P7MDWPAP [2]: (Janusek 2004: 225-226) Janusek, John Wayne. 2004. Identity and Power in the Ancient Andes: Tiwanaku Cities Through Time. New York: Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/SDDCMA8P |
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Kivas; mounds; shrines. “The Chacoan people created an urban center of spectacular public architecture by employing formal design, astronomical alignments, geometry, unique masonry, landscaping, and engineering techniques that allowed multi-storied construction for the first time in the American Southwest. The people built monumental public and ceremonial buildings in the canyon. The buildings were massive, multi-storied masonry structures of rooms, kivas, terraces, and plazas.”
[1]
“The presence of highly formalized great kivas, mounds and shrines, and features believed to mark the solstices, equinoxes, and various lunar phenomena clearly indicate that the Chacoan people experienced rich ceremonial and spiritual lives as well.”
[2]
[1]: (“Chaco Culture”) “Chaco Culture” NPS Museum Collections, accessed May 8, 2023, https://www.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/chcu/index1.html. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/NMRVDA5I [2]: (Snow et al 2020: 194) Snow, Dean R., Gonlin, Nancy, and Siegel, Peter E. 2020. The Archaeology of Native North America, 2nd ed. London; New York: Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5T4C9IQT |
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Necropolis; temples; funerary plaza. “Rulers of Tikal conducted the same rituals as elsewhere but on a much larger and public scale. The life histories of monumental public buildings demonstrate ritual replication and expansion of dedication, ancestor veneration, and termination rites. These buildings face large plazas in which hundreds, if not thousands, of people witnessed and participated in ritual events.”
[1]
“Tikal has inscriptions, its own emblem glyph, water symbolism, palaces, royal funerary temples, large ball courts, and tall temples facing large and open plazas (e.g., Temple IV is 65 m tall). Its monumental complexes are connected via sacbeob (causeways).”
[2]
“For example, more than a thousand years of temple construction (e.g., twenty plaster floors), destruction (e.g., smashed objects and defaced monuments), and rebuilding occurred in the site’s North Acropolis… On the south it faces the Great Plaza (125 x 100 m), where an audience probably would have watched and participated in royal ritual performances at least until the last few centuries of occupation at Tikal, when structures were built that restricted access.”
[3]
[1]: (Lucero 2006: 174) Lucero, Lisa J. 2006. Water and Ritual: The Rise and Fall of Classic Maya Rulers. Austin: University of Texas Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/NSX2SNWU [2]: (Lucero 2006: 162) Lucero, Lisa J. 2006. Water and Ritual: The Rise and Fall of Classic Maya Rulers. Austin: University of Texas Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/NSX2SNWU [3]: (Lucero 2006: 164-165) Lucero, Lisa J. 2006. Water and Ritual: The Rise and Fall of Classic Maya Rulers. Austin: University of Texas Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/NSX2SNWU |
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Cathedrals; churches; abbeys. “The city skyline was dominated by the spires of 96 parish churches and, towering over even them, old St. Paul’s Cathedral.”
[1]
“Whereas manor courts did not meet in parish churches (even though they were almost certainly the only buildings large enough for the purpose), vestries almost invariably tended to do so. The simple fact of this relocation rendered the presence of the state all the more tangible in the local community, for if Elizabethan vestries met in parish churches they did so in the presence of the royal arms, the ‘dragon and the dog’ having replaced Christ crucified as a, if not the, central symbol in parochial political culture in the mid-sixteenth century.”
[2]
[1]: (Bucholz et al 2013: 198) Bucholz, Robert, Newton Key, and R.O. Bucholz. 2013. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=1166775. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XQGJH96U [2]: (Hindle 2002: 229) Hindle, Steve. 2002. The State and Social Change in Early Modern England, 1550–1640 (London: Palgrave https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/GVIZDIC9 |
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Cemeteries; churches. Cemeteries throughout the entire region and polity duration. Anglo-Saxon cemeteries have been found dating from as early as 425 CE.
[1]
[2]
[1]: (Higham 2004: 6) Higham, Nick. ‘From Sub-Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England: Debating the Insular Dark Ages’, History Compass 2, no. 1 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2004.00085.x. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XZT7A79K [2]: (Yorke 1990: 7) York, Barbara. 1990. Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203447307. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/YXTNCWJN |
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Cathedrals; churches; abbeys; chapels; monastaries. “The abbey of Melk, some 80 kilometers west of Vienna, was the high point of church construction. Boasting a dazzlingly gilded church, it is an overpowering assertion of Austrian Baroque Catholicism. Karl himself added to Vienna’s palace complex, including the building of the Spanish Riding School, and the Hofburg’s impressive library. But closer to his heart was his project to turn the abbey of Klosterneuburg into his own version of El Escorial, a new monastery-palace for the dynasty to replace the one lost in Castile.”
[1]
[1]: (Curtis 2013: 213) Curtis, Benjamin. 2013. The Habsburgs: The History of a Dynasty. London; New York: Bloomsbury. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TRKUBP92 |
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Mosques; places of prayer. “Numerous sanctuaries, whether congregational mosques or simple places of prayer, were built in Fez under the _Alaw_ sovereigns and very often through their initiative. The most important of these were the mosques of B_b G_sa ( J_sa), of al-Ra_f and of al-Siy_j at F_s al-B_l_, and the mosque of Mawl_y _Abd All_h at F_s al-Jad_d. Local mosques, places of prayer dedicated to saints, headquarters of Su_ brotherhoods, were built in great numbers. Sanctuaries of reasonably large dimensions consisted according to local tradition of naves parallel to the wall of the qibla.”
[1]
“Be that as it may, Moroccan troops led by General ’All ibn ’Abdallah al-Rïfî, entered Tangier in Rabi’I of 1095/February 1684. Wasting no time, the General set about rebuilding what the English had demolished and restoring the mosques, walls, towers and everything else that they had destroyed during their stay and in their flight.”
[2]
“All the Christians in Morocco were collected there and were at first housed in siloes near the building-yards, then they were moved to the Dar al-Makhzen, then to near the stables, under the arches of a bridge, where their lot was particularly miserable, finally to lodgings built from mud brick along the north wall of the Dar al-Makhzen. They were able to organise themselves a little there, to build themselves a church, to have chapels, a convent and infirmaries.”
[3]
[1]: (Bosworth 2007: 144) Bosworth, Clifford Edmund. 2007. ed., Historic Cities of the Islamic World. Leiden; Boston: Brill. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/HGHDXVAC [2]: (Ogot 1992: 224) Ogot, B. A. 1992. ed., General History of Africa: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century., vol. V, VII vols. Oxford: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/24QPFDVP [3]: (Bosworth 2007: 400) Bosworth, Clifford Edmund. 2007. ed., Historic Cities of the Islamic World. Leiden; Boston: Brill. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/HGHDXVAC |
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There is written evidence to suggest that a temple was built by the founder of the dynasty, Artaxias I.
[1]
There were already existing temples in the region dedicated to “ancestors and pantheons, including, for example, Anahit, Vahagn, Aramazt, and Naneh, all worshiped by the polytheistic Artashesian elite.
[2]
[1]: “Artaxias I,”. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/7V7RMBLQ [2]: Payaslian 2007: 16. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/H8NEU6KD |
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"Contexts that could shed light on the dynamics of social structure and hierarchies in the metropolis, such as the royal burial site of Oyo monarchs and the residences of the elite population, have not been investigated. The mapping of the palace structures has not been followed by systematic excavations (Soper, 1992); and questions of the economy, military system, and ideology of the empire have not been addressed archaeologically, although their general patterns are known from historical studies (e.g, Johnson, 1921; Law, 1977)."
[1]
Regarding this period, however, one of the historical studies mentioned in this quote also notes: "Of the earliestperiod of Oyo history, before the sixteenth century, very little is known."
[2]
Law does not then go on to provide specific information directly relevant to this variable.
[1]: (Ogundiran 2005: 151-152) [2]: (Law 1977: 33) |
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The near-absence of archaeologically identified settlements makes it particularly challenging to infer most site types. "While the historical sources provide a vague picture of the events of the first 500 years of the Kanem-Borno empire, archaeologically almost nothing is known. [...] Summing up, very little is known about the capitals or towns of the early Kanem- Borno empire. The locations of the earliest sites have been obscured under the southwardly protruding sands of the Sahara, and none of the later locations can be identified with certainty."
[1]
[1]: (Gronenborn 2002: 104-110) |
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