The Cornerstone Ceremony

There prevail in many countries of the world today customs and ceremonies connected with the laying of the cornerstone for a new building. In America this ceremony frequently consists, in part, of embedding in an angle of the foundation or at the main entrance, documents, letters, or other relics relating to the sponsoring organization, pictures of the sponsors and current issues of newspapers and magazines. Officials of the organization or high dignitaries appointed by it, then make speeches dedicating or hallowing the new foundation. These foundations may be for a new building, a church, a university, a fortress or city wall, or a bridge.

In many writings on the subject of customs and ritual, the terms “dedication” and “hallowing” are used interchangeably with the words “consecretion,” “blessing,” “sacrifice,” and “sanctification.” The word “dedication” comes from Latin, dedicatio, dedicare: to proclaim, to announce, and means the setting apart of anything by solemn proclamation. In Latin it is the term particularly applied to the consecration of altars, temples and other sacred buildings. (1) The word consecration also is derived from Latin. Its roots are con and sacrare and its definition is: “the separating or setting apart of certain persons, animals, things, places and seasons as sacred so as to hallow and sanctify them in themselves or adapt them to a religious role and purpose. Thus we consecrate a king, a priest, a deacon, a temple, or a church. We also consecrate water for use in lustrations and bread and wine in the sacrament.” (2)

Anthropologists, ethnologists, and religious scholars tend to group together a number of rites connected with dedication and consecration due to their having basic characteristics in common or because the rituals are identical although referred to by different names. In the same category as the cornerstone ceremony they place groundbreaking ceremony, hallowing of a place or building, dedicating a church, consecrating an altar, t