adytum

Noun

adytum (plural adytums or adyta)

1. (Ancient Greece) The innermost sanctuary or shrine in a temple, from where oracles were given.
   • Let us now with minds free of paſſion, enter the adytum with an intent to find out its true figure, to examine what it really was, and what it is. […] This point is properly the door-way or entrance into the adytum, as a wicket or little door, whilſt the jambs of the hithermoſt trilithons preſent...1740, William Stukeley, “Of the Cell or Adytum of Stonehenge. Of the Surgeons Amphitheater, London.”, in Stonehenge: A Temple Restor’d to the British Druids, London: Printed for W. Innys and R....
   • At the diſtance of about forty ſtadia from this temple of Æſculapius, there is an incloſure; and in it there is an adytum ſacred to Iſis. This is the moſt holy of every thing which the Greeks conſecrate to this goddeſs. For the Tithoreans neither think it proper to take up their reſidence there...1794, Pausanias, chapter XXXII, in [Thomas Taylor], transl., The Description of Greece, by Pausanias. Translated from the Greek. […] In Three Volumes, volume III, London: Printed for R. Faulder, […]...

   Synonyms:

   adyt, adyton

2. (broadly) A private chamber; a sanctum.
   • Although it was the custom for the priestesses to affect a holy fury, a species of temporary insanity, in the delivering of their oracles, yet it was also the custom to write them on the leaves of trees, and to deposit them at the entrances of their caves, or the adyta of their temples; and it was...1829, Godfrey Higgins, chapter I, in The Celtic Druids; or, An Attempt to Shew, that the Druids were the Priests of Oriental Colonies who Emigrated from India, […], London: Rowland Hunter, […]; Hurst...
   • The adytums or inner circles of Abury and Stonehenge bear such an analogy to the holy of holies in Solomon's temple, as to induce the belief that they were formed subsequently to the temple of Jerusalem, with which the Tyrian workmen were quite familiar.1846, G[eorge] Oliver, “Lecture XV. On the Number and Classification of the Workmen at the Building of King Solomon’s Temple.”, in The Historical Landmarks and Other Evidences of Freemasonry...