Enigmatic Lands ~ Sacred Sites
Africa and the Middle East
Cappadocia
Pagans in this part of central Turkey lived and worshiped in chambers cut from volcanic rock long before Greek Christians arrived in the fourth century and converted the grottoes into churches.
Claros
Allegedly a place of divine prophecy, this site in western Turkey drew visitors from all over the known world during the Roman era and was one of the last oracles still operating in Christian times.
Great Pyramid
Dead animals found in this 4,400-year-old wonder, ten miles west of Cairo, offer evidence of the strange effect it is said to have on material things: Though dehydrated, the animals resist decomposition.
Great Zimbabwe
Perhaps showing the prehistoric residents’ mystical attachment to the soil, a thirty-foot-tall stone tower at this site south of the Zambezi River may have been a symbol used in crop fertility rituals.
Jerusalem
For centuries the object of both pilgrims and invading armies, this ancient city is revered by Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike. All three faiths consider it the site of miracles past and future.
Karnak
Evidence exists that this site south of Cairo was considered sacred centuries before the Egyptians built the prehistoric complex of temples and other structures whose ruins stand here today.
Lake Barombi Mbo
Believed to contain a powerful spirit named Mammy Water, this lake in Cameroon is the site of animal sacrifices intended to prevent such troubles as the spread of lethal lake-water gases along the shores.
Lalibela
Christians living near this town in northern Ethiopia have worshiped for centuries in eleven churches that were painstakingly hewn from solid rock. According to legend, the carvers were assisted by angels.
Mecca
This city in Saudi Arabia, the place toward which Muslims face when praying, surrounds a sacred stone said to have fallen from heaven. Muslims believe the stone was white and turned black absorbing human sin.
Mount Ararat
For years, a dragon, frigid snow worms, and other mythical creatures were thought to guard this 17,000-foot mountain in eastern Turkey. It is believed to be the final resting spot of Noah’s Ark.
Takt-I-Suleiman
Sacred to pagans, then Zoroastrians, then Muslims, but never to Christians, this complex on the shores of a supposedly bottomless lake in Iran was nonetheless rumored to be the hiding place of the Holy Grail.
Tassili N’Ajjer
Prehistoric paintings, some almost 7,000 years old, cover this rocky plateau 900 miles southeast of Algiers. Scholars say they hint at mystical practices once common but now lost in the mists of time.
Further Resources
Atlas of Holy Places and Sacred Sites
by Colin Wilson
Celtic Sacred Landscapes
by Nigel Campbell Pennick
Earth Memory: Sacred Sites
Doorways into Earth's Mysteries
by Paul Devereux
Power Places of Kathmandu: Hindu and Buddhist
Holy Sites in the Sacred Valley
by Kevin Bubriski
Sacred Sites of the West
by Bernyce Barlow
The Yucatan: A Guide to the
Land of Maya Mysteries
by Antoinette May
Continue to Enigmatic Sites in:
Travel to Uranus for Universal Myths.
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