Delphi

October 16, 2018  Delphi

A remarkable day. We drove to Delphi, high up in the mountains, passing beautiful villages such as Arahova:

On the way we had a wonderful talk from our Greek guide explaining the Oracle at Delphi.  She was thought to truly represent the gods, and important people, from kings to heads of state to generals came to ask her questions.  The problem was, she answered in unintelligible grunts, screeches and shouts, so her utterings required interpretation by the priests of Apollo’s temple, which is where she sat and held court.  There are many theories as to what substances she partook of, but whatever they were, they rendered her unfathomable.  For sure there were vapors of some sort, and she chewed on laurel leaves.  Many city-states had treasuries at Delphi where riches were brought to be used to access the Oracle.  It was quite a system!  We were told that the person asking questions of the Oracle usually was pleased with the answer, perhaps depending on the size of the gift.

We parked and walked up and up the “Sacred Way” towards the remains of the Temple of Apollo:

We passed the Athens treasury:

Here’s what’s left of the Temple of Apollo where the Oracle presided:

As you climb up above the Temple the whole site begins to come into view.  It is amazing that so much construction and so many pilgrims came to this place; the Oracle was extremely important:

High above the Temple site is a large amphitheater:

After our visit to the mountainside, we spent some time in the site museum, in which there are so many extraordinary things that choosing some to post was almost impossible.  Here is a sphinx contributed by the island of Naxos in the 6^th c. BCE, which stood on a huge, high tower.  You can see a representation of it in a picture at the lower right of this photo:

From the museum label, “The demonic creature with the female face and the enigmatic smile, the body of a lion and the wings of a bird, was supposed to be warding off the evil.”

Here is a pair of marble kouroi, dating from about 600 BCE, done in the very stiff Egyptian style:

Here is an astonishing kylix depicting Apollo crowned with a wreath of myrtle leaves.  From the label, ”His left-hand fingers touch the chords of his lyre, while with his right hand he offers libation, pouring wine from a navel-phiale.  The black bird accompanying Apollo is probably a crow.”

Here’s a close-up:

Joyce remembers studying this life-sized bronze charioteer in her Art 101 class:

Here’s a close-up of the head:

There are wonderful friezes too:

I could go on and on.  This site and museum are an absolute must-see when you go to Greece.

Leaving Delphi, we stopped above the village of Distomo to hear an incomprehensible story of Nazi atrocity.  In December 1944, German fortunes were turning and the Germans were retreating from this part of Greece.  A decision was taken to collectively punish the Greeks by murdering the entire population of the town of Distomo, men, women, and children including babies.  More than 200 people, the entire population of the town, were massacred.  This is a monument on a hilltop above the town, with the name and age of each person killed:

From the hilltop it was easy to see a line of wind generators—we’ve seen many of them here:

We headed back to Athens, and made one last stop for the day to visit the stadium, in the middle of downtown Athens, which was built for the 2004 Olympics which were held here:

The end of an amazing day.  Some of us reflected on the concept of an oracle or prophet whose communications are somewhat opaque and need to be interpreted.  Although tempting, as we tried to make any kind of a parallel between the Oracle at Delphi and the prophets of the bible, we failed.