ABSTRACT
The power of the natural elements earth, stones, water, oil, plants, and scents was absorbed through the senses. Writing was one way to preserve the pilgrimage experience and to share it with others; collecting objects was another. Both commemorated the visit and transmitted the essence of the holy places in their didactic, sentimental, and sensual senses. This chapter traces early evidence of object collection as attested to by early Holy Land pilgrims. By the sixth century, collecting eulogiae had become one of the main pilgrimage goals. The anonymous Piacenza Pilgrim, who visited the Holy Land around 570, went home with a sack full of objects he had collected in the holy places. Several remarkable stones could be seen and touched on Mount Zion. The Piacenza Pilgrim tells about a marble column that he saw on the highway on the way to Diospolis.
