In this book‎,‎ a distinguished team of authors explores the way space‎,‎ place‎,‎ architecture‎,‎ and ritual interact to construct sacred experience in the historical cultures of the eastern Mediterranean‎.‎ Essays address fundamental issues and features that enable buildings to perform as spiritually transformative spaces in ancient Greek‎,‎ Roman‎,‎ Jewish‎,‎ early Christian‎,‎ and Byzantine civilizations‎.‎ Collectively they demonstrate the multiple ways in which works of architecture and their settings were active agents in the ritual process‎.‎ Architecture did not merely host events‎;‎ rather‎,‎ it magnified and elevated them‎,‎ interacting with rituals facilitating the construction of ceremony‎.‎ This book examines comparatively the ways in which ideas and situations generated by the interaction of place‎,‎ built environment‎,‎ ritual action‎,‎ and memory contributed to the cultural formulation of the sacred experience in different religious faiths‎.‎