The Oracle at Delphi

For my first Saturday in Athens, I took a tour to the Temple at Delphi.  It was an amazing experience.

The bus picked me up at 7:45 and after we picked up the other passengers, we headed north out of town towards Delphi.  It's a 3 hour drive with 2 hours being on the highway and the last hour winding through villages on our way into the mountains to Delphi.

On the way, our guide spoke almost continuously explaining all that we were seeing.  It was fascinating.  I loved getting out of the city and seeing what the countryside looks like.  Along the roads, occasionally you'd see what looked like little dollhouse churches up on posts like mailboxes.  I found out that they are shrines that people put up - either to honor people who've died on that particular stretch of road (similar to people using crosses and flowers along roadsides in the US), or to commemorate special occasions or places.

Delphi's up in the mountains and on the way you can see Mount Parnassus.  It's so high, that the top was obscured in the clouds, but you could see the snow. The towns around it are set up for people to go skiing.





We passed through some Greek villages - a few main streets and houses surrounding.  In the mountains, the buildings hugged the mountain - it's just beautiful.  In the villages, they make beautiful cotton rugs.










Eventually we arrived at Delphi.  It's set on a hillside and has amazing views of the valley below.

The  was supposedly a spring between the two mountains / rockface and that's where the oracle resided.

Our guide was very informative and gave us lots of great information.  For example - notice the way the rocks are put together on this wall. They all fit just so - with no mortar and have stayed that way for hundreds of years - even in earthquake country.

She also pointed out the writing that was carved into the rocks that you can still read today.  A lot of it had to do with who donated what - somethings don't change.

Originally it was all a huge complex, with sports places and then along the path up to the temple itself there were lots of places for offerings.  People would purchase items to be left (like candles, etc.) and also rich people would donate buildings and statues.  This is a temple in honor of the Goddess Athena

This was considered to be the center of the earth - like a giant umbilical cord.  It's not placed where it originally was.  I wonder if it originally was closer to where the spring was.

This is what's left of the temple.  Sadly, as new religions and peoples took over, they insisted on destroying what had come before.  A lot of the damage was done by the Christians needing to destroy the previous religions sacred places.

Supposedly when it was time for a ritual, they'd sacrifice and animal - outside the temple.  Within the temple itself, there was a place for people to come. The oracle spoke through a young woman who lived there.  She would chew a lot of bay laurel leaves and sit in the steam area.  There are a lot of hot springs around there and they'd channel the steamy water through the bottom of the temple.  So - between the herb chewing and steam , the young woman would probably be pretty high and say all kinds of stuff.  There were priests who would then interpret what she was saying.  Interesting.









After touring the temple site, we checked out the museum.  We saw a statue of the Sphinx.

And a depiction of the head of Medusa.  You can also see how it was originally colored - with darker and lighter parts.

And we saw some ivory statues of gods with their gold headdresses.  The ivory is dark because the statues had been burned.

I even learned about the differences between cyprus trees.  The male of the species - on the left side - are tall and straight and contained.  The females - on the right side are more open and spread out.