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DOI: 10.46698/VNC.2022.84.45.012

SACRAL LOCUSES OF THE NATURAL-CULTURAL LANDSCAPE OF OSSETIA

Kulumbegov, Robert P.
Izvestia SOIGSI. 2022. IIS 45 (84).
Abstract:
The article deals with the categories of the Ossetian sacred landscape that is part of the natural
configuration of the people’s habitat. For centuries, people have asserted their presence in a particular
area through settlements, developing their households, building religious sites and cemeteries.
The human habitat was formed within the natural and ethno-cultural space, of which the sacred
landscape became a part. Both man-made objects (stone and wooden constructions, burial places)
and natural ones (caves, trees and sacred groves) became its constituent elements. Some of them
represented a separate object, others were part of a multilevel complex. With all the detailed study
of the individual elements of the religious cult of Ossetia the sacral locus has not been considered
as a single space of mythological action. This study is intended to fill this gap. The article presents
elements of the Ossetian sacred space by categories: sanctuaries, sacred groves and trees, cemeteries.
Each of these objects had its own mythological component distinguishing it from the general number
of similar ones. Sacred groves appear as a place of primary religious worship, only after some time
they are “filled” with sanctuaries and churches. The oak grove was a space of veneration of a certain
representative of the folk religious pantheon, personification also existed in relation to individual
sacred trees. The sanctuaries being an important element of the sacral relief of Ossetia are presented
as separate objects and as a part of the interconnected mythological space spread in the horizontal
and vertical projection. Sacral loci in Ossetia are also gender and age specific. A separate category
of the spiritual space consists of the final resting places of man. In Ossetia they are represented by
ground burials, crypts of different architecture, memorial steles.
Keywords: sacred landscape, sanctuary, sacred grove, stele, cemetery
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