Since at least 100,000 years ago, humans have been attracted to certain places that are associated with extraordinary events. These centers[1] were perhaps first associated with supernatural appearances, sacred powers, or merely areas were sacred presence was manifested. During the Neolithic period, the first man-made centers were constructed, a key example being Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. When the first civilizations were built, centers became architectural syntheses of religious and political power, given that the kings whose dominion controlled these city-states and empires were believed to be divinely engendered. The Romans were perhaps the first civilization to invest sacred values to what was considered secular institutions, like the military. It is from Rome that we have the beginning of the military monument for the memorial remembrance of heroes who sacrificed themselves for the Patria, the fatherland. Sacred and sacrifice originate in the Latin sacro, “to set apart as hallow.”
Many of these monuments were located on what was known as sacred ground, battlefields where the dead were often buried: hallowed ground. These military memorials still function as sites where the secular and at least tacit religious beliefs are merged. Silence and genial reverence are communicated, and church-like hallowedness is practiced. Remembrance and honor are combined with sacred consciousness and shrine-like ornamentation.
Today, on Memorial Day, many of these centers are being visited (through passed approach due to COVID-19) by those who remember, paying homage to those who sacrificed for a greater cause or belief. Many there will unconsciously disavow the liminal indifference between the sacred and the secular.
[1] For centers, see David Summers, Real Spaces: World Art History and the Rise of Western Modernism (London, 2003).