Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Place 500-1500

<p><em>Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Place 500-1500</em> focuses on the unique ways that natural materials carry the spirit of place. Since early Christianity wood earth water and stone were taken from <i>loca sancta</i> to signify them elsewhere. Academic discourse has indiscriminately grouped material tokens from holy places and their containers with architectural and topographical emulations two-dimensional images and bodily relics. However unlike textual or visual representations natural materials do not describe or interpret the Holy Land; they are part of it. Tangible and timeless they realize the meaning of their place of origin in new locations.</p><p></p><p>What makes earth stones or bottled water transported from holy sites sacred? How do they become <i>pars pro toto</i> signifying the whole from which they were taken? This book will examine natural media used for translating <i>loca sancta </i>the processes of their sanctification and how although inherently abstract they become charged with meaning. It will address their metamorphosis natural or induced; how they change the environment to which they are transported; their capacity to translate a static and distant site elsewhere; the effect of their relocation on users/viewers; and how their containers and staging are used to communicate their substance. </p>