The navel of the world
According to the story, Zeus wanted to find the middle of the world. He released two eagles from its two ends, and they met above Delphi, on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. The Greeks marked the meeting point with a stone they called the omphalos, that is, the navel.
A marble omphalos found at the sanctuary is covered in a carved net of knotted bands, the kind of woollen net that wrapped the sacred stone. For a Greek visitor, standing beside it meant standing at the centre of the earth, in the place where the god spoke.
A god who answered questions
What made Delphi famous across the Mediterranean was the oracle of Apollo. A priestess called the Pythia sat in the inner room of the temple and gave the god’s answers to people who came with questions. Cities asked whether to go to war or found a colony; private visitors asked about marriages, debts and voyages.
The answers were often ambiguous. Herodotus tells how Croesus, king of Lydia, asked whether he should attack Persia and was told that if he did, he would destroy a great empire. He attacked, and the empire he destroyed was his own. How the Pythia reached her state of inspiration is still argued over: ancient writers mention vapours from the ground, and modern geologists have looked for gases in the faults under the temple, but the idea that a gas caused her trances remains a hypothesis.
A sanctuary built by all Greece
Delphi did not belong to one city. Greek states competed to leave their mark on the Sacred Way that climbs to the temple, with statues, monuments and small buildings called treasuries, where they stored their offerings. The Athenians built theirs after their victory over the Persians at Marathon in 490 BCE. Delphi was one of several great sanctuaries where Greek religion brought rival cities together.
Three temples on the same terrace
The first stone temples of Apollo were built at the end of the seventh century BCE. A later temple was paid for in part by the Alcmaeonids, an exiled Athenian family, around 510 BCE. In 373 BCE that building was destroyed, most likely by an earthquake, and money came from all over Greece to replace it. The new temple, finished around 330 BCE, is the one whose foundations and raised columns you see today, built in the Doric order.
Games, a theatre and a bronze charioteer
Every four years Delphi hosted the Pythian Games, in honour of Apollo. Unlike Olympia, they included contests in music and poetry as well as athletics and chariot races. The theatre above the temple and the stadium higher up the slope were built for them.
The most famous object from Delphi was a gift for a victory in those games. The Charioteer, a life-size bronze, was dedicated by Polyzalos, ruler of Gela in Sicily, after a chariot victory in 478 or 474 BCE. He survived because an earthquake buried him, and he is one of the few large Greek bronzes to reach us, because most Greek bronzes were melted down for their metal.
From oracle to excavation
The oracle lost its importance under Roman rule and fell silent as the empire became Christian. A village later grew over the ruins, and the French School at Athens moved it to excavate the sanctuary from 1892. Since 1987 Delphi has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the finds are in the museum beside the site.
Where to see it
Delphi lies about 180 kilometres north-west of Athens, on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. The omphalos, the Charioteer and the sculptures of the treasuries are in the Archaeological Museum of Delphi, next to the site.
Sources
- Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Archaeological Cadastre, “Archaeological Site of Delphi”.
- Archaeological Museum of Delphi, the Charioteer.
- Herodotus, Histories, I.53 and I.91 (Croesus and the oracle), Perseus Digital Library.
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre, “Archaeological Site of Delphi” (393), 1987.
- J. Z. de Boer, J. R. Hale and J. Chanton, “New evidence for the geological origins of the ancient Delphic oracle”, Geology 29 (2001).
