Votive sites are sites where animal sacrifice, in the form of bones deposited in a split in a block of stone or beneath a cairn, are made.
The sites strongly resemble graves or tombs; however, no human bones are found. Such finds are made in Hallstatt culture sites, and presumably represent graves. Votive sites, or (North & East Saami) "seite" or (South Saami) "storiockare" (storjunkare) are representative, especially among Saami groups and hence are most common in Lappland. It was believed that stones ruled over the food resources and as such were protected from Giants by the help of Thor. However, findings are also made down to Scania, Sweden where an earlier interpretation, in 1589, was a rendezvous point of Huns and Goths. Findings in Central Europe are usually devoted to the Hallstatt culture. A similar worship in stones is known in Crete.
Famous quotes containing the words votive and/or site:
“... it was religion that saved me. Our ugly church and parochial school provided me with my only aesthetic outlet, in the words of the Mass and the litanies and the old Latin hymns, in the Easter lilies around the altar, rosaries, ornamented prayer books, votive lamps, holy cards stamped in gold and decorated with flower wreaths and a saint’s picture.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“That is a pathetic inquiry among travelers and geographers after the site of ancient Troy. It is not near where they think it is. When a thing is decayed and gone, how indistinct must be the place it occupied!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)