In his handbook, Burkert considers ritual to be the cornerstone of Greek religion and, accordingly, starts his analysis with a chapter called ‘Ritual and sanctuary’. As he uses the term ‘ritual’ as self-evident, we will start with some introductory observations on the use of the term and on the possibilities for studying ancient ritual (§ 1). Subsequently we analyse important ritual acts, such as prayer, procession and, in particular, sacrifice (§ 2). We conclude the chapter with a discussion of various larger ritual complexes (§ 3).