Why read Studies into the Balts' Sacred Places?

Book cover of Studies into the Balts' Sacred Places

Book description

The sacred places of the Balts of Lithuania take the form of sites and monuments that are shrouded in myths and legends. This study is based on an analysis of 1200 examples and, although very few have been investigated archaeologically, Vykintas Vaitkevicius looks at the historical, linguistic, ethnological and folklore…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Studies into the Balts' Sacred Places as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Aleksander Pluskowski

Author

Despite its somewhat unassuming title and cover, this book remains one of the most accessible and interesting studies of native spirituality in the eastern Baltic written in English. Before the crusades that forged Catholic Livonia and Prussia, the natural world was imbued with religious meanings, and trees, rocks, hills, rivers, and lakes were foci of cult activity. Once Christianity was introduced, many of these sacred natural places endured and were recorded in later sources, echoing down the centuries. Vykintas Vaitkevičius, an archaeologist and one of the foremost Lithuanian scholars of Baltic ‘paganism,’ pulls together an incredible compendium of information drawn…

From Aleksander's list on The best books about the cultural impact of the crusades, rather than just the battles.