sacred sites: Europe 889 A Shinto service began with worshippers clapping their hands or making other noises to summon the kami A period of prayer followed, and the service concluded with worshippers offering small gifts as symbolic sacrifices At some time during the year a shrine would be the site of a community festival, with a carnival-like atmosphere that celebrated the relationship between the people and the kami—a relationship that served as the basis of the continuing success of the community Shinto shrines were the sites of personal appeals for divine assistance; community and patriotic celebrations; and traditional ritual commemorations of certain life achievements, especially births and marriages A Shinto priest served as an intermediary between the earth deity and ancestors on the one hand and the human community on the other Ujigami, the supreme guardian spirits, could only be accessed by commoners through the intervention of aristocratic patrons or their associated Shinto priests The heaviest concentration of medieval ritual sites in Japan was in the imperial capital cities of Nara and Kyoto in central Japan and in the earliest shogunate capital at Kamakura south of modern Tokyo in the north The Todaiji Buddhist temple in Nara, built in 743, is among the finest of the early ritual sites At that time Buddhism was practiced by the emperor and his court and thus was the state religion The temple building and its statue, like other Japanese civil and ritual structures of that era, were modeled on the art and architecture of contemporary China’s Tang Dynasty The Todaiji temple was built to symbolically unify all the Buddhist temples throughout Japan and their elite patrons under the centralized political and spiritual leadership of the emperor Shomu (724–49) According to Japanese legend, 2.6 million people participated in its construction Inside the Todaiji temple is the massive Daibutsu (“Great Buddha”) statue At a height of 49 feet and a weight of 500 tons, the Daibutsu is the world’s largest cast-bronze Buddha Its ears are 8.25 feet long, and its hands can hold 20 people The structure is held up by thick wooden pillars One pillar in the rear of the temple has a hole through it said to be the size of the Buddha’s nostril By tradition any person able to pass through that hole is a candidate for entrance to heaven The Buddha is seated in a meditation posture on a lotus throne (symbolic of purity and the foundation for the “flowering” of knowledge), presiding over the various levels of the universe With outstretched hands, the Buddha willingly offers truth and knowledge to his faithful devotees The giant Buddha statue is housed in a wooden structure rising 157 feet, making it the world’s largest building made of wood Social life in medieval Pacific Island communities centered on group performances and rituals held at local meeting grounds Community assemblies convened inside a large wooden hall adjacent to the meeting grounds, where speeches, songs, and ritual processions took place The proceedings frequently ended in gift exchanges between the meeting hosts and their guests, acknowledged by ceremonial physical contact (such as the touching of noses among the New Zealand Maori), and a concluding ceremonial sharing of food The spectacular ritual city at Nan Madol on the southeast shore of Temwen Island, off the coast of Pohnpei in modern Micronesia, and the mysterious stone heads of the Easter Island, which date from roughly 400, are representative of higher levels of ritual performance in the medieval Pacific Islands However, neither site offers any explanation of the rituals beyond the archaeological remains Nan Madol was built by the line of kings of the Saudeleur Dynasty At its peak between the eighth and 13th centuries the city consisted of a coral reef of 92 human-made islets intersected by a network of artificially constructed canals and waterways Most of the islets were rectangular-shaped basalt rock platforms made of coral rubble The islets were surrounded by seawalls of loglike basalt stone, each weighing up to tons and measuring more than 15 feet long The seawalls, standing up to 50 feet high and 20 feet wide, were built to protect the islets from the high waves of ocean storms The ritual sector of the city consisted of 58 islets that were the site of elaborate funeral rituals, the residences of priests, and royal tombs surrounded by walls up to 25 feet tall Administrators used another city sector, consisting of 34 islets, where the nobility also lived Europe by Amy Hackney Blackwell Sacred sites were very important to medieval Europeans People visited shrines and cathedrals to pray for help in all matters They asked to have their illnesses cured, prayed to have children, asked for advice, and tried to ensure their eternal salvation Although they could pray for these things anywhere, they hoped that prayers made at sacred sites would be more effective They hoped that the saint or holy figure associated with the site would take a special interest in petitions made at that location and would look favorably on them Sites were considered sacred to Europeans if they had some religious significance In this case, the religions in question were Judaism and Christianity, both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Sites became sacred in several ways If Jesus or one of the apostles was said to have been born, to have died, or to have taught in a particular place, that location might be considered sacred Likewise, if a saint or holy person worked, performed miracles, or died in a place, that spot would hold special significance A church that held a