The innermost element of a temple where the cult image or bark of the deity was placed or the elaborate boxes containing funerary statuary. It was a repository for relics; either fixed, as a tomb, or movable, as a feretory. A shrine can be a case, box, or receptacle, especially one in which sacred relics (as the bones of a saint) are deposited - or a place in which devotion is paid to a saint or deity (sanctuary). A shrine can also be a niche containing a religious image, a receptacle (as a tomb) for the dead, or a place or object worshipped in association.