ABSTRACT
In his handbook Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical (Oxford 1985; original German edition 1977) Walter Burkert pays attention in two places to cult places/sanctuaries: once when he deals with cult places of the prehistoric period (pp. 24-34), and again when he deals with sanctuaries of the Archaic and Classical periods (pp. 84-95). In both cases he devotes almost the same number of pages to this topic. This is remarkable, because the book has more than six times as many pages on the historic period than it has on the prehistoric period. The disproportionate emphasis in the case of sanctuaries is the result of the different source material available for both periods as well as of a different approach.
