Delphi

(Image: From Nigel Pennick, "Secret Games of the Gods," Pythia, c. 400 BCE. Notice the 3x3 checkered board motif in the border, that dates back to at least 6,000 BCE in the lands around the Mediterranean. The "roof" of the embrasure where the Pythia is installed is also checked, perhaps replicating the older checkerboard-patterned palenques for deceased kings and special warriors used in archaic Greece and, even earlier, the checkered ceilings of the enclosures holding the mummies of ancient pharaohs. Notice also the eight-pointed "rosette" on the side of the Pythia's stool, which I assume is matched by another on the other side. The 8-point rosette is long associated with the goddess Inanna, who travelled to the Land of No Return and entered the underworld to retrieve her deceased lover/son, and successfully returned. The Pythia holds a shallow bowl or dish in her left hand and an oracle branch in her right hand. The holding of the dish or bowl in her left hand is significant. In "Christian" times, left-handed people, particularly females who were left-handed, were often persecuted and/or killed as "witches.") A selection from Barbara Walker's "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Legends." Delphi "Womb"; Greece's oldest, most famous oracle, where Mother Earth was worshipped under the name of Delphyne, the Womb of Creation, along with her serpent-son and consort Python.(1) At various times the oracle was said to belong to the Sea-goddess, or the Moon-goddess, various designations of the same primal Mother, whoses priestess-daughters, the Pythonesses, controlled the rites. Eventually the patriarchal god Apollo took it over, retaining the Pythonesses, but claiming to have placed the serpent in his underground uterine cave, whence came the oracle's inspiration. Apollo murdered the priestess Delphyne, and held the oracle until it was closed by the Christian emperor Thedosius. After him, Arcadius had the temple entirely destroyed. Notes: (1) Graves, G.M., 1, 80.

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Compare to this information from Wikipedia entry on Delphi: The name Delphois starts with the same four letters as δελφύς delphus, "womb" and may indicate archaic veneration of Gaia, Grandmother Earth, and the Earth Goddess at the site.[4][5] Apollo is connected with the site by his epithet Δελφίνιος Delphinios, "the Delphinian." The epithet is connected with dolphins (Greek δελφίς,-ῖνος) in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (line 400), recounting the legend of how Apollo first came to Delphi in the shape of a dolphin, carrying Cretan priests on his back. The Homeric name of the oracle is Pytho (Πυθώ).[6] Notes 4, 5 and 6 (referenced above): (4) Fontenrose, Joseph, The Delphic Oracle: Its Responses and Operations, with a Catalogue of Responses (1978). pp.3-4. "Such was its prestige that most Hellenes after 500 B.C. placed its foundation in the earliest days of the world: before Apollo took possession, they said, Ge (Earth) [Gaia] and her daughter Themis had spoken oracles at Pytho. Such has been the strength of the tradition that many historians and others have accepted as historical fact the ancient statement that Ge and Themis spoke oracles before it became Apollo's establishment. Yet nothing but the myth supports this statement. In the earliest account that we have of the Delphic Oracle's beginnings, the story found in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (281-374), there was no Oracle before Apollo came and killed the great she-dragon, Pytho's only inhabitant. This was apparently the Delphic myth of the sixth century". (5) Farnell, Lewis Richard, The Cults of the Greek States, v.III, pp.8-10, onwards. "The earth is the abode of the dead, therefore the earth-deity has power over the ghostly world: the shapes of dreams, which often foreshadowed the future, were supposed to ascend from the world below, therefore the earth-deity might acquire an oracular function, especially through the process of incubation, in which the consultant slept in a holy shrine with his ear upon the ground. That such conceptions attached to Gaia is shown by the records of her cults at Delphi, Athens, and Aegae. A recently discovered inscription speaks of a temple of Ge [Gaia] at Delphi. ... As regards Gaia, we also can accept it. It is confirmed by certain features in the latter Delphic divination, and also by the story of the Python." (6) Odyssey, VIII, 80 The legend about Apollo assuming the shape of a dolphin carrying Cretan priests on his back is a classic gloss of patriarchal take-over of a goddess shrine - blatant, actually! I don't think I've read a clearer example of this type of masculine glossing over of older matriarchal and/or goddess-oriented myths. Foreign invaders brought their alien war-gods with them, and took over what was there before. Sadly, a story oft-told throughout history. Today we call it propaganda.

The Snake Stone

In reading a book review tonight at The New York Times of "The Snake Stone," I was sufficiently intrigued by this comment:

The title of "The Snake Stone" refers to the bronze column created after the Battle of Plataea in 479 B.C. and installed at Delphi until it was transported to Constantinople, where its serpent-adorned head disappeared.

that I decided to do a little further research.

Well, darlings, I didn’t recall reading about a snake stone in all the years I’ve been researching, including plenty of research on serpent iconography! And I didn’t know anything about a Serpent Column. That just goes to show, Ya Nevah Know, to quote Rosanne Rosannadanna (at least, I think it was Rosanne Rosannadanna).

Delphi was the site of a spectacular Temple to Apollo, the god of prophecy, and his equally famous female Oracle, known as the Pythia. Pythia is, of course, "python," and is an oblique reference to the antiquity of the site, the serpent iconography of which predates Apollo, who slayed the serpent in some accounts, but which survived in the person of the Pythia; and possibly a link to the archaic form of the Goddess Athena, an archaic bird goddess that became associated with the serpent. In later times in Greek mythology Athena was depicted with an owl as one of her icons, representing "wisdom." I’ve written about Athena and her link to serpents and her association with ancient bird goddess iconography here.

I did a quick Google search under "snake stone" and quickly discovered that it might be associated with quartz and is credited with healing. In a related form, there is an entry at Wikipedia that briefly discusses a "snake" or "serpent" stone being made out of materials other than a stone or gemstone – usually made out of bone – and used much as a bezoar – reputedly with the ability to cure snake bite by removing the venom from a snake-bite victim. See also this entry.

That line of inquiry wasn’t taking me where I wanted to go – so I tried a new search and ended up with direct links to information about the Serpent Column at Delphi.

Unfortunately, it seems that no representations of this artifact – long ago disassembled – exists in contemporary accounts. There are written descriptions, but these are somewhat vague and have lead to different interpretations of what the column topped by its golden basin (resting on a tripod?) must have looked like. The golden basin, crafted out of booty taken by the Greeks after they defeated the Persians at the battle of Plataea in 479 BCE, was melted down in circa 345 BCE by Phocian forces (who then controlled the Temple area) to pay their mercenaries, and only the "serpent column" remained. The column was comprised of three intertwined serpents (not just one serpent) and ended in the serpents’ heads, upon which the golden basin rested. However, as the golden basin was said to rest upon a golden tripod, there is speculation that an underlying tripod (with an encircling gold band that rested either inside or outside the three serpents heads?) with three golden legs of equal length to the serpent column was also incorporated into the memorial.

Constantine the Great removed what was left of the memorial (the brass serpent column) from Apollo’s Temple at Delphi to take a place of honor in his newly constructed Hippodrome in Constantinople in the 4th century CE. (Gee, what a Christian guy!) There it remained until the city was conquered by Mehmet II in 1453 CE. It is said that Mehmet II partially damaged at least one of the serpent heads (jaw area) with a battle ax or mace, but all three of the serpents’ heads evidently remained intact until circa 1700 CE. The graphic at the beginning of this post is from Wikipedia, which described it as follows: Ottoman miniature from the Surname-ı Vehbi, showing the Column with the three serpent heads, in a celebration at the Hippodrome in 1582. See

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/circusmaximus/delphi.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpentine_Column.

The mystery of the goddess lives on. If Jason Goodwin is writing about one serpent head, what happened to the other two? Does someone have them, and are they still considered sacred talismans?