Sacred Space: Archaeological and Religious Studies Perspectives: Exercise 1: Memorialization

On the wiki document a case study of memorialization through the use of monuments. This might be a real physical place (even local), something drawn from the realm of fiction, or simply an idea locked in the sketchpad of an artist or the binary code of GoogleEarth or Wikimapia. Do these monuments construct memories that not only reflect an image of a particular social reality but also manage to transform our engagement of that social world through their play on time and space into something more? The ancient Sumerians had a term for it – “mē” – which might be translated as a divine enervating force. What place does ritual have in these transformations if they in fact exist?

In class we will plan to discuss your case studies in conjunction with the readings on the relationship of monuments and memory. In what ways is this part of a social process of making space sacred?

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