Atlas Trail
Seven places that a tradition treats as different in kind from anywhere else, one tradition at a time. What makes a city sacred is not the same answer twice: a burial, a river, a direction of prayer, a founder, a court, or simply the fact that people have not stopped going.
Stop 1 of 7.
Cities
The obvious first stop, and the only one on this trail that three separate traditions hold sacred for three separate reasons. Note which reason each gives before moving on.
Stop 2 of 7.
Cities
Sacred by succession rather than by event: the claim rests on who is buried here and what is said to follow from that.
Stop 3 of 7.
Cities
A burial again, and a different conclusion drawn from it. Read the two together and the shape of the argument is the same while the tradition is not.
Stop 4 of 7.
Cities
Here the ground itself is the claim, and the river is doing the work rather than any single grave.
Stop 5 of 7.
Cities
A young sacred city by the standards of this list, and one whose sanctity is tied to a founder who was still alive when it was established.
Stop 6 of 7.
Cities
Sacred as a seat, where the institution and the place became difficult to separate.
Stop 7 of 7.
Cities
End somewhere the sanctity is distributed across many sites rather than concentrated in one, which is the pattern the other six do not show.
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