| |
Archaeologists are good at recovering things left
behind by the past, such as buildings, incense altars, tools and relief
carvings. What they are not so good at recovering are the ideas, feelings and
emotions of sentient ancient beings. It's one thing to examine a temple's holy
of holies, it's another thing to understand what went on there and what people
experienced. Sometimes, however, there's an exception to the rule. Numerous
classical authors report that natural phenomena played an essential part in one
of their most sacred religious rituals: the oracle at Delphi. According to the
geographer Strabo (c. 64 B.C. - 25 A.D.), for example,
"the seat of the oracle
is a cavern hollowed down in the depths...from which arises pneuma [breath,
vapor, gas] that inspires a divine state of possession".
Over the past five
years, a team of researchers - a geologist, an archaeologist, a chemist and a
toxicologist - has put that claim to the test, making it much more likely that
we will actually understand what happened at
Delphi. When ancient Greeks and
Romans had to make decisions, they consulted the gods by drawing lots, casting
dice, interpreting dreams and analyzing such signs as sneezes, thunderbolts and
flying birds. But for matters of the utmost importance, they sought to hear the
words of the gods in the mouths of oracles. Paradoxically, in male dominated
classical Greece the most influential voice, the Delphic oracle, belonged to a
woman. The oracular temple was perched on the south slope of Mount Parnassus,
surrounded by high cliffs, about 75 miles west of Athens. Getting to
Delphi required either a long trek across the mountains or a sea voyage to the
north shore of the Gulf of Corinth. However difficult the journey, thousands of
visitors sought guidance from the holy woman, called the
*Pythia, who spoke on
behalf of the gods.
*Pythias
were virgins who dedicated their lives to prophesying on behalf of the god
Apollo. The first Pythia is said to have been the goddess Themis. According to
sources, the Pythia was inspired by mysterious vapors, though these accounts
have been largely ignored by modern researchers. Now, however, a team of
archaeologists and geologists have proved that the Temple of Apollo sat directly
above fault lines that likely released intoxicating carbon based gases into the
adytum. Was this the oracle's secret?
The Pythia dealt less in visions of the future than in
right choices: where to locate a new colony, when to attack an enemy, how to
lift a curse, whom to choose as leader, what offering to make to which god. No
kingdom, city or private person could afford to make critical decisions without
consulting the Pythia. Thanks to her prestige, Delphi became the richest and
most famous Hellenic sanctuary. The Greeks called it the
omphalos, or
"navel of the world".
How could a mere mortal command such respect? The answer lies in the belief that
Apollo - the god revelation and inspiration - used the Pythia as his mouthpiece,
taking possession of her during oracular sessions. The Pythia would fall into a
trance, and delivered in a voice very unlike her normal tones. Most scholars
believe the Delphic oracle was established around the eighth century B.C. when
founders of new colonies would consult the Pythia before setting out for the
western Mediterranean, North Africa, Asia Minor or the Black Sea. The origins of
the oracle are recounted in a story about a goatherd named Koretas, who pastured
his flock on the slope of Mount Parnassus. Koretas noticed that when the goats
grazed near a certain fissure in the mountainside, they began to bleat
strangely. Approaching the fissure, he was filled with a prophetic spirit.
Eventually, a woman - the first Pythia - was appointed to sit on a tripod over
the cleft and give prophecies, Before she could mount the tripod, however, a
goat had to be sacrificed to ensure that the day was propitious. The priests and
temple attendants determined the order of the queue, giving priority to state
embassies and then working their way down through military commanders, athletes,
poets and, last of all, mere heads of families concerned about a child or an
investment. The supplicants filed past bronze statues, war monuments and
treasure houses dedicated in the past by grateful visitors. It would have been
late in the day by the time the ordinary men at the rear reached the terrace of
the temple and viewed the famous inscriptions,
"Know
Thyself " and
"Nothing in Excess".
From here the way led up a ramp to a great colonnade of Doric columns, and then
through a double door into the temple itself. Inside burned a constant pinewood
fire tended by women of Delphi. The final approach to the oracle led downward
into a sunken space below the level of the level of the temple floor, where the
visitor would be confronted by a gold statue of Apollo and the * omphalos stone that marked the sacred spot. *
The egg -
shaped stone at left, the very stone described by the Greek writer Pausanias,
who visited Delphi in the second century A.D. represents the omphalos or
"navel of the world". According to Greek legend, Delphi was fixed as the
center of the world when Zeus released two eagles, one from the west and
the other from the east, which met in the sky above Delphi.
The
Pythia sat in accessed inner sanctum called the adytum,
a Greek word meaning "not to be entered".
Standing outside the adytum, visitors would ask their questions and await the
response. Unlike itinerant prophets and omen - interpreters, the Pythia derived
her power from the place - she could only prophecy while seated in the adytum
within the temple of Apollo. According to the Strabo, the pneuma arose from a
small opening (chasm gas) in the adytum:
"Over the
mouth [of the opening] a high tripod is set. Mounting this, the Pythia inhales
the pneuma and then speaks prophecies in verse or in the prose. The latter are
versified by poets on duty in the temple". Strabo was not the only
ancient source to describe the adyton and the intoxicating gas. The 2nd century
A.D. traveler Pausanias told of a spring in the temple's adytum that made the
Pythia prophetic. Also who served as a priest of Apollo at Delphi, described an
exhalation of vapor on the adytum that sent the Pythia into a trance. Despite
these testimonies, no serious scholar over the last 50 years has accepted the
idea that the Pythia's trance was caused by a gaseous emission. Modern
investigations began to excavate the sanctuary at Delphi. They first moved the
modern village of Kastri, household by household, from above the ancient
sanctuary to the town of Delphi, west of the sanctuary. The French
archaeologists uncovered the boundary wall of the ancient sanctuary, an entry
gate, and the lower stretches of the Sacred Way. By1983 they had reached the
terrace of the Temple of Apollo - where they found that scarcely a stone
remained in place above the floor. The columns had toppled and the sanctuary had
been carried off or destroyed. In the lower chamber, where the the oracle once
spoke, no trace of the ancient structure remained. Even the archaeologists
attempts to reach bedrock were frustrated as water filled the excavated areas.
While the French team was excavating the temple, a young English scholar named
A.P. Oppe published a report based on his visit to the site. Oppe proposed that
the ancient sources had confused the fissure with a nearby gorge, and that the
vapor was simply a fiction that had been passed from source to source.
The first
step toward a modern reassessment of the evidence was made in the 1980s by
geologist Jelle Zeilinga de Boer, the senior member of our project in Delphi. De
Boer was conducting surveys, under the auspices of the U.N. and the Greek
government, to identify active fault lines. One area he studied was the south
slope of Mount Parnassus, where he noted an exposed fault both east and west of
the sanctuary of Apollo - though it could not be seen at the site of the temple,
where it was covered by ancient construction that the fault did indeed run under
the temple, but he gave the matter no more thought. It was not until the summer
of 1995 that De Boer encountered an archaeologist, co-author John Hale of
the university of Louisville, who assured him, first, that he could not possibly
have seen any such feature at Delphi and second (after De Boer described the
fault in detail), that this might be a discovery of major importance. We decided
to continue investigations at Delphi, eventually adding a chemist (Jeff Chanton
of Florida State University and the U.S. Geological Survey Magnetic Laboratory)
and a toxicologist (Henry Spiller of the Kentucky Poison Center) to the team. In
1996, with the support of Rozina Kolonia, the director of the Delphi Museum, we
conducted a survey of the site and found that the sections of exposed fault on
either side of the sanctuary were indeed part of the same fault - an active
fault extending about 13 miles east- west along the southern flank of Mount
Parnassus. We named this fault the Delphi fault. In subsequent seasons we
identified a second fault, extending approximately southeast -northwest. This
fault could be traced along a line of springs running through the center of
sanctuary. The highest spring above the temple, is called the Kerna Spring, its
water is currently channeled westward to modern Delphi. Further sown the slope,
though still above the temple, a mass of travertine (a kind of limestone)
deposited by calcite - rich waters indicates another spring. There is also an
elaborate channel for a spring built into the southern foundation wall of the
temple itself. Although the spring is dry today, the early 20th c. French
archaeologists found it difficult to reach bedrock within the sanctuary because
their holes kept filling up with water. Dawn the slope below the temple, yet
another spring emerges from a cleft in the bedrock near the Treasury of the
Athenians. We have named this southeast northwest fault the Kerna Fault, after
its highest spring. What the ancient authors described as a fissure (chasm gas)
in the rock over which the Pythiasat was probably a small fracture extending up
from the intersection of these two faults. Greek geologists had already
identified the limestone under the temple as bituminous (oil bearing), with a
petrochemical content as high as 20 percent. These petrochemicals appeared to be
a possible source of gases. But how exactly could they be released from the rock
into the atmosphere? The Delphi Fault is linked to one of the Greece's most
geologically active features: the great rift, that today is filled by the waters
of the Gulf of Corinth. This is a recent feature, geologically speaking, having
formed roughly two million years ago. The rift continues to widen: as it does,
motion occurs along faults and earthquakes are triggered. As slippage occurs
along the fault lines, adjacent rock masses are heated, vaporizing the lighter
petrochemicals in the limestone and expelling gases upward along the face of the
faults. Once faulting has opened such a pathway, gases continue to rise,
although the volume would slowly decrees over time. We believe that this is
exactly what happened at Delphi: The rock masses deep in the earth were heated,
and they intermittently produced gases that rose up along the intersection
produced gases that rose up along the intersection of the two fault lines,
eventually entering the adyton of the temple through one more fissures over the
which the Pythia sat.
We decided to test the spring water at Delphi, along with
samples of the travertine rock that the ancient springs had deposited in the
retaining walls and slopes around the temple. If significant quantities of gases
had been emitted with the spring water, traces of these gases might be found in
the travertine deposits. The very presence of travertine rock, formed from
dissolved calcites in warm spring water, is evidence that the springs along the Kerna Fault had their origin at deep levels. The water and travertine from the
sanctuary of Apollo, which were analyzed by Jeff Chanton, revealed traces of the
light hydrocarbon gases found in Isthmus of Corinth and on Zakynthos. Could this
explain the Pythia's state of intoxication in ancient times?
The ancient sources
describe two distinct types of prophetic trance experienced by the Pythia.
First, and more normally, she would lapse into benign semi- consciousness,
during which she remained seated on the tripod, responding to questions, through
in a strangely altered voice. According to
Plutarch,
once the Pythia recovers from this trance, she was in a composed and relaxed
state, like a runner after a race. A second kind of trance involved a frenzied
delirium characterized by wild movements of the limbs, harsh groaning and
inarticulate cries. |
|
