Sacred Center: The Ancient Art Of Locating Sanctuaries

Symbols of ritual centres are among the most persistent elements of myth and belief between cultures widely separated in time and space. Every tribe and state had its 'generation centre,' a sacred area within its heartland where legendary founders gave birth to its people and established their laws. Within the inner sanctum of the sanctuary was an altar or pillar, the omphalos or navel stone, that marked the midpoint of the home territory and represented the world-pole on which everything revolved. It was the focus of a perpetual cycle of rituals and festivals that passed with the seasons around the country and held its people under the spell of a golden age.

In this book John Michell reveals the precise methods by which the ancients located the appropriate centres and adopted them as sanctuaries. The same principles of ritual geography in the siting of of Akhenaten's capital in Egypt and Megalopolis in classical Greece apply also to the traditional centres of small territories and islands. The rediscovery of these sites – such as the spot at the centre of Ireland where the Celtic High Kings were installed – sheds new light on the ritualised order of prehistoric societies and the sacred, scientific code on which they were founded. These revelations from the distant past are of great significance in present times, for in them are the secrets of harmony on every scale, from the personal to the universal. Restoring the sacred centre to its former place of prominence offers the possibility of a renaissance of human culture, ideally centred upon the image of a perfectly ordered Cosmos.

· Examines ancient territorial centres in ancient Egypt, Greece, Africa and Asia, Iceland and the British Isles