Sacred grove

Sacred groves, sacred woods, or sacred forests are groves of trees that have special religious importance within a particular culture. Sacred groves feature in various cultures throughout the world. These are forest areas that are, for the most part, untouched by local people and often protected by local communities. They often play a critical role in protecting water sources and biodiversity, including essential resources for the groups that protect them.

They were important features of the mythological landscape and cult practice of Celtic, Estonian, Baltic, Germanic, ancient Greek, Near Eastern, Roman, and Slavic polytheism. They are also found in locations such as India (Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu), Japan (sacred shrine forests), China (Fengshui woodland), West Africa and Ethiopia (church forests). Examples of sacred groves include the Greco-Roman temenos, various Germanic words for sacred groves, and the Celtic nemeton, which was largely but not exclusively associated with Druidic practice.

During the Northern Crusades of the Middle Ages, conquering Christians commonly built churches on the sites of sacred groves. The Lakota and various other North American tribes regard particular forests or other natural landmarks as sacred places. Singular trees which a community deems to hold religious significance are known as sacred trees.

The most famous sacred grove in mainland Greece was the oak grove at Dodona. Outside the walls of Athens, the site of the Platonic Academy was a sacred grove of olive trees, still recalled in the phrase "the groves of Academe".

In central Italy, the town of Nemi recalls the Latin nemus Aricinum, or "grove of Ariccia", a small town a quarter of the way around the lake. In antiquity, the area had no town, but the grove was the site of one of the most famous of Roman cults and temples: that of Diana Nemorensis, a study of which served as the seed for Sir James Frazer's seminal work on the anthropology of religion, The Golden Bough.

A sacred grove behind the House of the Vestal Virgins on the edge of the Roman Forum lingered until its last vestiges were burnt in the Great Fire of Rome in 64 CE.

In the town of Spoleto, Umbria, two stones from the late third century BCE, inscribed in archaic Latin, that established punishments for the profanation of the woods dedicated to Jupiter (Lex Luci Spoletina) have survived; they are preserved in the National Archeological Museum of Spoleto.

The Bosco Sacro (literally sacred grove) in the garden of Bomarzo, Italy, lends its associations to the uncanny atmosphere.