Crowning, rotating, and emanating hierophanies with elevatio aspect in wayside shrines

Abstract

Abstract My aim in this paper is to investigate the variants of directionality implied in visual hieratic texts as religious markers in the sacrosphere, which are substantially expressed in the form of a wayside shrine/cross. The methodological underpinnings for this project rely on the proposed semiotactics (cf. Haładewicz-Grzelak): the investigative perspective modeled after phonotactics – a branch of phonology investigating the restrictions on and the possibilities of phoneme combinations in languages (cf. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk 2011). The study draws on digital documentation of wayside shrines, crosses, and sacrality markers on houses collected by the author in various European countries (2009–2021), focusing in particular on the material collected in the area of present Slovakia, Ukraine, Austria, Slovenia, and the region of the Beskid Mountains in Poland. It shows how bodily hexis is inscribed into the phenomenology of a wayside shrine through particular types of hierophanic dynamics. The study also focuses on the aspect of headedness and markedness in the nano-structure of a sign, surfacing as directionality in the conceptualization of the religious sphere by particular communities.