Post by Forrest on Sept 28, 2009 12:32:47 GMT -5
Death Omens: What To Do When You Know The Worst Is Coming
Author Unknown
The Oracle at Delphi
by Morgana
I count the grains of sand on the beach and measure the sea;
I understand the speech of the dumb and hear the voiceless.
The Oracle (also called Pythia) at Delphi: Mental images of darkness, pungent fumes and fragrant incenses, cloudy and clouded memories, unintelligible ravings, riddles, profound knowledge and wisdom.
Delphi lies on the slopes of Mount Parnassus in Greece. The town, once called Kastri, used to lie above the ruins of the sacred compound. It was relocated in the 1890s, when serious archaeological excavation began at the ruins.
According to Greek myth, Zeus charged two eagles with finding the center of the earth. He released one to the east and one to the west. They met at Delphi, thus pointing out the center of the earth. A cone-shaped, decorated stone, the omphalos, once stood in front of the Temple as a marker for the "navel" of the earth.
Legends surrounding the Oracle are so tightly intertwined with history that getting an accurate picture is impossible. Even today, scholars argue over whether the Oracle was incoherent, whether reports of her accuracy were overstated, and so forth. Here and there, we get a glimpse, a teasing little glimpse, of Apollo's Pythia at work, but there's even less information on the Oracles who resided at Delphi during the earlier time, when the shrine was devoted to the Earth Mother, Gaea, before the Greeks rededicated it to Apollo. The lack of information about the shrine of the Earth Mother could be due mainly to the fact that it was so long ago that no written records exist, although there is a strong possibility that records did exist once and were destroyed along with the culture that had created them. Virtually all of the information we have about Delphi comes from the writings of the Greek conquerors.
Author Unknown
The Oracle at Delphi
by Morgana
I count the grains of sand on the beach and measure the sea;
I understand the speech of the dumb and hear the voiceless.
The Oracle (also called Pythia) at Delphi: Mental images of darkness, pungent fumes and fragrant incenses, cloudy and clouded memories, unintelligible ravings, riddles, profound knowledge and wisdom.
Delphi lies on the slopes of Mount Parnassus in Greece. The town, once called Kastri, used to lie above the ruins of the sacred compound. It was relocated in the 1890s, when serious archaeological excavation began at the ruins.
According to Greek myth, Zeus charged two eagles with finding the center of the earth. He released one to the east and one to the west. They met at Delphi, thus pointing out the center of the earth. A cone-shaped, decorated stone, the omphalos, once stood in front of the Temple as a marker for the "navel" of the earth.
Legends surrounding the Oracle are so tightly intertwined with history that getting an accurate picture is impossible. Even today, scholars argue over whether the Oracle was incoherent, whether reports of her accuracy were overstated, and so forth. Here and there, we get a glimpse, a teasing little glimpse, of Apollo's Pythia at work, but there's even less information on the Oracles who resided at Delphi during the earlier time, when the shrine was devoted to the Earth Mother, Gaea, before the Greeks rededicated it to Apollo. The lack of information about the shrine of the Earth Mother could be due mainly to the fact that it was so long ago that no written records exist, although there is a strong possibility that records did exist once and were destroyed along with the culture that had created them. Virtually all of the information we have about Delphi comes from the writings of the Greek conquerors.