Ancient and ArchaeologyΜύ permalink
athens delphi and the oracle
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Message 1.Μύ
Posted by thegoodbadugly (U2942713) on Friday, 14th April 2006
as many learned posters on this board have posted their thoughtd on ancient greece and their way of life,i thought i should point out some facts about life in them days in greece,
the whole of greecian society was built on their belive in oracles,thought to see into the future,what exactly was an oracle,and why was the oracle in delphi so revered so much,here is why,
recent excavations on the site show large amounts of swamp gas was present on the site,this gas had hallucionagenic propertys,when the priest would consult the oracle he would breathe in a large amount of swamp gas and trip out,where he would see whatever he wanted to and rely the dream back to whoever was waiting for a sign from the oracle, as a lot of greecian decions where made on the strength of the vision the oracle had given them,now seeing as though a lot of greek mythology seems to come from the oracle, we can now safely say that it was a stoned priest off his head on swamp gas who was directing the affairs of greece,
this thread is open to discussion and no fighting please.and happy easter to all posters. -
Message 2
Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Friday, 14th April 2006
Actually the Oracle was female and the gobbledegook she spoke was "translated" by priests who probably had a fair degree of political savvy.
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Message 3
Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Friday, 14th April 2006
I'd also say that Greece had a large number of original thinkers, some of whose ideas are valid today. Has anyone ever come up with a better comment on religious faith than the Riddle of Epicurus?
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? The why call him God? -
Message 4
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 14th April 2006
Happy easter to you also! Delphi was the most important Oracle there were others of course, I think Olympia had an oracle as well, with the oldest being the oracle of Dodone in Epirus.
I did not know the story about the swamp, I thought it was the burning of halucinogenic plants that did the job, but then it could be just nicely swamp plants so this theory makes a lot of sense - not to mention that in ancient Greece there were much more forests, the climate was a bit hotter (tropic before 10,000 B.C., sub-tropic between 9,000-1000 B.C. and mild-mediterranean between 1000 B.C.-400 A.D. before it ended in the modern mediterranean one). It is known that there were a lot more swamps than today before 3000 B.C. but most had been covered by mysterius Minyans around that time, but then in Sterea Ellada (mid-south Greece) it is known that there were swamps even in classical years.
However taking for granted the dislike of people to swamps (ilnesses, mosquitos, still useless waters etc.) and that anywhere there existed swamps peopel tried to cover them to make them land for cultivation, I highly doubt that the Oracle was built right on a swamp. Perhaps on a very old covered swamp, who knows - though nearby swamps could exist of course from where plants or directly gases as you propose could be taken. The position was most probably chosen for its natural beauty that can be seen even today (despite considerable natural/human alterations) since Greeks tended to chose the most beautiful point or a point with some meaning for their religious buildings. I doubt they would chose a swamp for the temple of Appolon, a protector god of arts - though anything is possible it could be just nicely another explanation. -
Message 5
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 14th April 2006
I'd also say that Greece had a large number of original thinkers, some of whose ideas are valid today. Has anyone ever come up with a better comment on religious faith than the Riddle of Epicurus?
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? The why call him God?
Μύ
Reading things like this one understands how basic human questions remained unaltered and unanswered through the centuries.
I remember reading parts from an Egyptian writer who is so critical on the Pharaos and their politics and then the army-life (fate of soldiers and how they are exploited only to be given a few coins etc.) and things like this take out the idea that many unconsciously keep on that the average Egyptian was a semi-slave whose only knew how to serve the Pharao and built tombs and such. -
Message 6
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 14th April 2006
Actually the Oracle was female and the gobbledegook she spoke was "translated" by priests who probably had a fair degree of political savvy.Μύ
That was the whole idea! Priests would have a first meeting with the 'client' and then they would discuss the issue alone or perhaps with 'Pythea' who later would get stoned and say 'whatever'. In all cases 'Pythea''s answer was a sentence of double meaning. Poor Croisus king of Lydians, people of mid-Minor Asia, then the richest kingdom in the area, had sent ambassadors to the Oracle (indeed even non-Greeks were visiting it) in order to ask about his attack against Medians. 'Pyhea' told him 'attack and a kingdom shall fall'. Croisus believed that to be the Medians kingdom only to find out that it was his own kingdom!!! This is an excellent example of a double-meaning word.
I liked the other when Byzas from Megara visited the Oracle to ask where he should found his colony - of course he should have said the general area (propontis) - and he was told 'head towards pontus, then built your city opposite to the city of the blind people!'. Byzas arrived in the propontis second channel and there he saw Halkidona a previous colony built on the right side and he laughed saying "these people should had been really blind not to see that it is on the left side that one should built his city" thus he remembered what the oracle had said and built the city named Byzantio on the European side. This story gave the idea that the Oracle must have played an important role in the expansion of Greeks around the Mediterranean as it became a centre for exchanging information (geography, commerce links etc.) - and it is true that Delphi strongly played that card. -
Message 7
Posted by snazzyangel (U3243081) on Friday, 14th April 2006
recent excavations on the site show large amounts of swamp gas was present on the site,this gas had hallucionagenic propertys,when the priest would consult the oracle he would breathe in a large amount of swamp gas and trip out,where he would see whatever he wanted to and rely the dream back to whoever was waiting for a sign from the oracle, as a lot of greecian decions where made on the strength of the vision the oracle had given them,now seeing as though a lot of greek mythology seems to come from the oracle, we can now safely say that it was a stoned priest off his head on swamp gas who was directing the affairs of greece
Just where in Greece did they find this swamp gas? Was this swamp gas found near some ruins.
And are they still using this gas for their "readings"
The people had to believe in something so this oracle gave them the mythology and gods and goddesses to belive in -
Message 8
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Sunday, 16th April 2006
I hate being a spoilsport but I should point out some inaccuracies in the original posting, which places - I might add - a very simple faith in the veracity of what he refers to as 'recent excavations'.
First of all the research referred to involved no excavation - nor needed to. It was a measurement of gas emissions from fissures in the limestone underlay beneath Delphi.
Secondly the poster failed to point out that the researcher - Jelle de Boer - had already concocted a theory relating to gas emissions before attending the site, always a danger sign to those wishing to empirically evaluate published 'findings'.
Thirdly the gas that de Boer found was not termed 'swamp gas' but simply Ethylene. High concentrations of this gas could be considered 'euphoria inducing' (though a more clinical and accurate description of its properties would simply say 'sickening'). In any case nothing even approaching a quantity sufficient to invoke any type of physiological reaction in a human was recorded, much to the dismay I am sure of de Boer, though it did not stop him publicising his findings in the manner that the original poster has chosen also to propagate.
That people used drugs - sometimes in all innocence - to enhance or instigate euphoric states, and then ascribe a religious significance to the activity, is nothing new. The Greeks themselves even went so far as to record which plants etc they favoured for the purpose. And there is no doubt that such activity took place in Delphi too. But a far more interesting analysis of Delphi would pay less interest in the drugs and more in how the whole complex (remember that the Oracle was a tightly integrated part of a community with city status that held significant political influence over many years) was utilised by its neighbours as a 'moral approval' mechanism when they wished to advance political claims. Drugs, gasses or whatever, in the end of the day Delphi was as good a proof as any that political consultants will inevitably advise exactly what they think their paymasters want to hear - just as now. -
Message 9
Posted by thegoodbadugly (U2942713) on Tuesday, 18th April 2006
instead of excavations will we say sniffing gas,
instead of swamp gas will we say gas.there happy now. I hate being a spoilsport but I should point out some inaccuracies in the original posting, which places - I might add - a very simple faith in the veracity of what he refers to as 'recent excavations'.
First of all the research referred to involved no excavation - nor needed to. It was a measurement of gas emissions from fissures in the limestone underlay beneath Delphi.
Secondly the poster failed to point out that the researcher - Jelle de Boer - had already concocted a theory relating to gas emissions before attending the site, always a danger sign to those wishing to empirically evaluate published 'findings'.
Thirdly the gas that de Boer found was not termed 'swamp gas' but simply Ethylene. High concentrations of this gas could be considered 'euphoria inducing' (though a more clinical and accurate description of its properties would simply say 'sickening'). In any case nothing even approaching a quantity sufficient to invoke any type of physiological reaction in a human was recorded, much to the dismay I am sure of de Boer, though it did not stop him publicising his findings in the manner that the original poster has chosen also to propagate.
That people used drugs - sometimes in all innocence - to enhance or instigate euphoric states, and then ascribe a religious significance to the activity, is nothing new. The Greeks themselves even went so far as to record which plants etc they favoured for the purpose. And there is no doubt that such activity took place in Delphi too. But a far more interesting analysis of Delphi would pay less interest in the drugs and more in how the whole complex (remember that the Oracle was a tightly integrated part of a community with city status that held significant political influence over many years) was utilised by its neighbours as a 'moral approval' mechanism when they wished to advance political claims. Drugs, gasses or whatever, in the end of the day Delphi was as good a proof as any that political consultants will inevitably advise exactly what they think their paymasters want to hear - just as now.Μύ -
Message 10
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 18th April 2006
instead of excavations will we say sniffing gas,
instead of swamp gas will we say gas.there happy now.Μύ
Even happier, as the alterations you have made in your description of what occurred don't alter my riposte one iota. -
Message 11
Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Tuesday, 18th April 2006
There were of course many other oracles in the Greek world - are we to assume they all had a similar supply of "gas"?
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Message 12
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 18th April 2006
Amazingly, deBoer did just that - which is proof if proof were needed of the danger in ascribing a crackpot or badly researched theory to a real event. When the event is itself demonstrated to be part of a wider pattern the theorist is faced with the dilemma of retracting their theory, belatedly adjusting their 'findings' despite the fact that their source 'data' remains the same, or simply brazening things out by insisting that their theorised findings apply to the pattern as a whole.
DeBoer chose the latter course, unwisely I feel. His theory, to give it a title grander than it deserves, states exactly what you have referred to - that ALL the oracle sites have gas emissions in common. There is no evidence whatsoever that this wild assertion can be substantiated, but such a lack of evidence is not apparent on the several internet sites that interest themselves in his 'findings'. -
Message 13
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Wednesday, 19th April 2006
Gaiseric, yup, look at Cumae for example.
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Message 14
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Wednesday, 19th April 2006
I was under the impression that Delphi like many other sites famed for their oracles appears to lie on a geological fault line emitting sulphuric gases. Generally these smell of rotten eggs. As such Boiotia had some sixty or so oracle shrines including that at Delphi that seems to have come to prominence on account of the spread of Hesiod's poetry and Corinth's patronage during the seventh century BC and not as a result of Croessus of Lydia's test mentioned by herodotus. I can't help thinking that the geological makeup of Boiotia with all those underground rivers does seem to mirror the construction of the underworld mentioned by Hesiod and expanded upon by Virgil. Mind you water has often been taken as a border between different worlds and as such we are looking at areas that weaken the barriers between the Underworld and the Living World. Thus the messages were supposed to be inspired by the patron deities communicating through the oracles. The fact she, oracles were overwhelmingly female, had to get intoxicated on sulphuric gases in order to become a conduit for the God's utterances meant that they tended not to have too long a carreer and as such it took the formalisation of priestly classes to make the utterances into doggeril that kept the more prominant sites going. You might try Plutarch who was a priest at Delphi.
Anyway, oracles were always ambiguous and rarely made specific claims unless the Spartans decided to bribe the priests so half the art was interpreting what it meant. Given the fact that each city recorded the resposnses to questions they had made to the various oracles they consulted they did tend to be usable in practically any situation long after the initial question had been raised and often in quite unrelated circumstances to the issue that prompted the response in the first place. They could mean whatever you wanted them to given a little lateral thinking. Note the defeatist prophecy issued to Athens in the light of the oncoming Persian invasion after the Ionian revolt was supressed that was turned around by Themistocles to justify state ownership of the new Silver mines in Laurion and the expansion of the Athenian fleet. Mind you there is far more to suggest Delphi was rather pro Mede during the invasion years. -
Message 15
Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Sunday, 23rd April 2006
There is a classic academic study of the Delphic oracle by a guy called Joseph Fontenrose, who basically argues that NONE of the alleged responses (as reported by Herodotus, Plutarch etc) is likely to be genuine.
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Message 16
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Tuesday, 25th April 2006
Not sure Herodotus was privy to all the oracular records of each community, just that they were cited as being relevent to a particular incidents. As for Plutarch, I think its likely the responses would be preserved by the communities that made the requests rather than at the shrine itself where they were more keen on dedications from wealthy patrons.
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Message 17
Posted by Xenos5 (U1814603) on Wednesday, 26th April 2006
lolbeeble
I have been to Delphi; I expect you have too. If the theory of sulphuric gases is correct I wonder why there is no sign of them now. 2500 years is a very short time in terms of geological phenomena. If all (or even many) of the oracles had some sort of gas associated with them, surely one would expect to find at least some of these gas sources still producing. (Or perhaps new ones elsewhere in the general area). If so, this would go a long way to proving the theory I think. If there are none - and I assume there are none, or else they would be well-known and quoted in support of the gas theory - this suggests to me it's not correct.
Regards, david of crieff -
Message 18
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Wednesday, 26th April 2006
As I understand it the oracle was suspended on a tripod within a cave emiitting fowl smelling gases beneath the temple complex in order to transmit the will of the deity. The smell was thought by some to be the decaying python, son of Gaia the earth, slain by Appollo on the site although I gather traces of methane and ethylene have been detected in the grotto. There again Delphi does lie on the edge of the African and European continental plates and is in a geologically active area.
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Message 19
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Wednesday, 26th April 2006
The tiny (and I mean TINY) amounts of ethylene that we are talking about here (even Boer, the guy whose 'research' champions this theory, did not dare suggest that the methane being produced could ever have been detected by anything but the most sensitive modern equipment) would have had no effect on anyone in the vicinity. Ethylene, in large quantities, displaces oxygen. Its physiological effect on a person therefore is akin to gradual suffocation.
By 'large quantities' I mean: if you take all the ethylene calculated by Boer to have been released from beneath the granite layer on which Delphi stands over a period of one year, and if you pump all of it into an absolutely air tight chamber (which Delphi was not) that approximates in size to that in which the 'priestess' did her thing, then you just MIGHT deprive one person of sufficient oxygen to make them feel like they're standing half way up Everest.
I would advise against buying into crackpot theories based on bad science. It works against the true wonder of the historical phenomenon - it does not enhance it in any way. -
Message 20
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Wednesday, 26th April 2006
Really, what caused the frenzies then? I was under the impression it was oxygen starvation caused by inhalation of these gases so in a sense I agree with your assessment but some state they may have had psychoactive properties. Mind you you could try Geology August 2001 for a more detailed assesment of the chemical compostion of the gases detectd in a nearby spring as well the cross roads of two geological fault lines. It sounds horribly like all that mystical stuff about sacred points controlling the energy of the earth but believe me I have no intention of going there.
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Message 21
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 27th April 2006
The 'frenzies' could be anything from chemically induced stupors (gasses not required, the Greeks had discovered much better gear, man), to enhanced self-hypnotic states of excitement as are still recognised as religious experiences by some cults in the modern era, or even just plain old acting. What they weren't caused by were the gasses 'traced' by Boer and his team. About the only effect they would have had in large concentraions would have been to create a sufficient stink in the vicinity to discourage others from interfering with the rather smelly priestess while she got on with the business of telling her clients what they paid her to say.
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Message 22
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Thursday, 27th April 2006
Actually you will find it was the Scythians who had access to the best gear, according to Herodotus at any rate. Having said that the Oddysey does suggest they were aware of opiates, but these were used in a domestic situation to take Telemachus and Menelaus mind off the fate of Oddyseus. Have you looked up the Geology article by the way?
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Message 23
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 27th April 2006
Give me a link if its online. Otherwise give me time.
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Message 24
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Thursday, 27th April 2006
S'alright, been a few years since I read it so I can't remmber the data about the gas thats all...
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Message 25
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Thursday, 27th April 2006
Cant find a direct link but did find this collection of news articles sourced from the press releases:
Seems it was ethylene after all. I dunno, you wouldn't have thought it was the ancient equivelent of poppers would you? -
Message 26
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 27th April 2006
If by 'poppers' you mean stink bombs, then it seems that it was.
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Message 27
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Thursday, 27th April 2006
WEll I was thinking more of solvent abuse, particularly petrochemicals that occasionally make the news when some idiot sets themself alight with petrol vapours.
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Message 28
Posted by marduk-slayer of tiamat (U2258525) on Friday, 28th April 2006
I'd also say that Greece had a large number of original thinkers, some of whose ideas are valid today. Has anyone ever come up with a better comment on religious faith than the Riddle of Epicurus?
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? The why call him God?
Μύ
i got an answer to that actually.
evil exists cos mankind created it.
it is mankind that has the concept of evil, without us classifying stuff as good or evil there would be no good or evil. its our fault. -
Message 29
Posted by thegoodbadugly (U2942713) on Saturday, 29th April 2006
wrong, anamails have shown acts of extreme cruelty,
the difference with humans is we use weapons on an organised scale to kill each other,
the oracle reader in a way held sway over the empire that asked their help with a dream from the oracle.
all drugged up out of their minds on something or the other telling armys where to go and what to do.
in a way our past is shaped by the strength of the drugs or the ability of the reader to lie.
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