New to me, the term “loci numinosi”. Wonderful.<\/p>\n
Found in a descriptive blurb for the new open access conference-proceedings Cult Practices and Cult Spaces in Hittite Anatolia<\/em>. Half the volume is on… “the significance of various [sacred] places, such as rivers, loci numinosi<\/em>, roofs, [etc]”<\/p>\n The term seems to have been invented relatively recently by Hittite historians, to describe places where a ‘numinous’ deity might have been found, ranging from a typical temple altar or throne to ‘the catch-bag’ of a day’s hunting. Possibly in a sacred grove. The term is thus somewhat more humdrum than it first appears. Borrowing lustre from the more widely-known idea of the genius loci<\/em>, which means the more ineffable (but also protective or “tutelary” as Lovecraft calls it) spirit of a natural place. <\/p>\n Still, the delightful new term loci numinosi<\/em> is definitely one for imaginative authors to consider borrowing. One might even make a slight tweak to loci luminosi<\/em> to indicate the repository of glowing Lovecraftian crystal, a high niche illuminated by giant burnished mirrors, a sacred grove of bio-luminescent fungi, or a dark place into which light can only enter at certain key moments of the astronomical cycle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New to me, the term “loci numinosi”. Wonderful. Found in a descriptive blurb for the new open access conference-proceedings Cult …<\/p>\n