VIDEO LINK:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=noGmCvVc9Gw

 

PRIESTESS (PYTHIA) OF ANCIENT DELPHI

                     PART III

In Part III, we will now explore the four-step process for persons seeking an audience with the Oracle at Delphi, along with the excavations commencing in 1892, and other investigative work completed by various geologists.

In the traditions associated with Apollo, the oracle only gave prophecies during the nine warmest months of each year.  On the seventh day of each month, the oracle would undergo purification rites, including fasting, to ceremonially prepare the Pythia for communications with the divine.  She would bathe in the Castalian Spring then would drink the holier waters of the Kassotis, which flowed closer to the temple, where a naiad possessing magical powers was said to live. [1] She then descended into the adytum (Greek for “inaccessible”) and mounted her tripod seat, holding laurel leaves and a dish of Kassotis Spring water into which she gazed.  Nearby was the omphalos  (Greek for “navel”), which was flanked by two sold gold eagles representing the authority of Zeus, and the cleft from which emerged the sacred pneuma.

The experience of supplicants (those seeking a consultation with the oracle)

Four-Stage Process Of The Supplicant: It would appear that the supplicant to the oracle would undergo a four-stage process, typical of shamanic journeys.

Journey to Delphi:  Supplicants were motivated by some need to undertake the long and sometimes arduous journey to come to Delphi in order to consult the oracle.  In some cases the supplicants traveled great distances to consult the oracle.

Preparation of the Supplicant:  Supplicants were interviewed in preparation of their presentation to the Oracle by the priests in attendance.  The genuine cases were sorted and the supplicant had to go through rituals involving the framing of their questions, the presentation of gifts to the Oracle and a procession along the Sacred Way carrying laurel leaves to visit the temple, symbolic of the journey they had made.

Visit to the Oracle:  The supplicant would then be led into the temple to visit the adyton, put his question to the Pythia, receive his answer and depart.  The degree of preparation already undergone would mean that the supplicant was already in a very aroused and meditative state.

Return Home:  Oracles were meant to give advice to shape future action, which was meant to be implemented by the supplicant, or by those that had sponsored the supplicant to visit the Oracle.  The validity of the Oracular utterance was confirmed by the consequences of the application of the oracle to the lives of those people who sought Oracular guidance [2]

At times when the Pythia was not available, supplicants could obtain guidance by asking simple Yes-or-No questions to the priests.  A response was returned through the tossing of colored beans, one color designating “yes” another “no.”  little else is known of this practice. [3]

Between 535 and 635 of the Oracles of Delphi are known to have survived since classical times, of which over half are said to be accurate historically (see the article Famous Oracular Statements from Delphi  for some examples). [4]

Excavations

Beginning during 1892, a team of French archaeologist directed by Theophile Homolle of the College de France excavated the site at Delphi.  Contrary to ancient literature, they could find a fissure or possible means for the production of fumes which were said to be inhaled by the Oracle.  Later, Adolphe Paul Oppe published an influential article [32] in 1904, which made three crucial claims:  No chasm or vapor ever existed; no natural gas could create prophetic visions; and the recorded incidents of a priestess undergoing violent and often deadly reactions was inconsistent with the more customary reports. [5]

Other scholars such as Frederick Poulson, E.R. Dodds, Joseph Fontenrose, and Saul Levin all stated that there were no vapors and no chasm.  For the decades to follow, scientists and scholars believed the ancient descriptions of a sacred, inspiring pneuma to be false.

However, a subsequent re-examination of the French excavation has shown that this consensus may have been mistaken.  Broad (2007) demonstrates that a French photograph of the excavated interior of the temple clearly depicts a springlike pool as well as a number of small vertical fissures, indicating numerous pathways by which vapors could enter the base of the temple. [6]

During the 1980s, the interdisciplinary team of geologists Jelle Zeilinga de Boar, archaeologist John Rl Hale, forensic chemist Jeffrey P. Chanton, and toxicologist Henry R. Spiller [7] investigated the site at Delphi using this photograph and other sources as evidence, as part of a United Nations survey of all active faults  in Greece [5]

Jelle Zeilinga de Boar saw evidence of a fault line in Delphi that lay under the ruined temple.  During several expeditions, they discovered two major fault lines, one lying north-south, the Kerna fault, and the other lying east-west, the Delphic fault, which parallels the shore of the Corinthian Gulf.   The rift of the Gulf of Corinth is one of the most geologically active sites on Earth; shifts there impose immense strains on nearby fault lines, such as those below Delphi.  The two faults cross one another, and they intersect right below where the adyton was probably located.  (The actual, original oracle chamber had been destroyed by the moving faults, but there is strong structural evidence that indicates where it was most likely located. [8]

Footnotes

1.      Broad, W.J. (2007), p.34-36

2.     Fontenrose, Joseph (1981), “Delphic Oracle: Its Response and Operations.” (Uni of Calif. Press)

3.     Broad, W.J. (2007), p. 38-40

4.     Fontenrose, op cit

5.     ab The Oracle at Delphi Medb hErren

6.     Broad, W.J. (2007), P 146-7.

7.     Wikipedia-Pythia