Listening in Ancient Spaces: Towards an Aural Architecture in the Past

This paper aims to analyse recent studies which have raised new hypotheses concerning aural architecture as an emerging trend in humanities research, with a particular focus on the intersection of sacred space, rituals, and sound in the past. These studies have highlighted how sacred buildings not only defined a sacred place as a physical and symbolic expression of a specific form of worship, but also established the setting for performative and multisensorial ceremonies in which music, dance, and other sonic events played an important role. In this contribution, we will investigate these studies on aural architecture to explore if the location of sacred spaces indicates whether ancient people reacted to ritual and musical developments by modifying sanctuaries or by designing and constructing new buildings and spaces for performances. This overview also takes into consideration how digital technologies and virtual acoustics can help shape our understanding of the architecture-sound nexus.