Stone Worship

Before before, there was the veneration of stones. Gems and meteorites were held in highest regard, followed by stones that, cloudlike, contained the faces of animals. Fossils explained life underground and stones brought back from mountaintops were the properties of gods. The dead were returned to earth and anchored with stones, first to deter the animals from digging them up, later to keep the ghosts from their haunts, and finally to mark the lives gone on. As close to permanent as anything the earth had to offer, stones were to be revered.