Sacred Delphi

  Delphi, Greece
Wednesday, September 26, 2007

The following morning, bright and early, we were driven from our bunks for the several-hour bus ride along the western coast of the peninsula. We were told not to worry if we missed anything along the road because we had to come back this way again in order to cross the bridge.

The Sanctuary of Olympia existed as a religious and athletic centre for over 1000 years, finally fading from prominence in the 1st century AD. It is, of course, the home of the first Olympic Games, which occurred in 776 BC. It was very special to actually be there and see Hera's Altar where the Olympic Flame has been lighted from the time the games first began up to the present day - except for a period of a few hundred centuries in the middle there somewhere when Christianity, considering the activity to be pagan, which it was, banned the games.

It was also great fun to stand in the stadium that housed the early games and to think back over 25 centuries as to what might have gone on there. One of our number, being in better shape than the rest of us, chose to run the length of the stadium and back, a distance of perhaps 500 or 600 yards. We crowned him with a laurel of olive branches.

At the vaulted entrance to the stadium Anitazizi assembled the group and then asked me why there would have been sixteen statues standing along this stretch. I had no clue but ventured to guess maybe there were sixteen Greek city-states participating in the games. No, she replied, implying "stupid tourist", there was no reason, it was purely chance. Really? I just took another sixteen percent off her gratuity and let it pass.

The Temple of Zeus that had been the dominant feature of the Sanctuary in antiquity now lies as so much rubble on the ground. But it is impressive rubble, with huge fluted column segments five feet in diameter strewn like chips

Remains of the Temple of Zeus, Olympia

on a giant poker table. Elsewhere, in the Palaestra, which the athletes used as their training centre, some of the colonnade that surrounded the center field has been reconstructed, to great effect.
Adjacent to the Sanctuary grounds is the Olympia Archeological Museum that houses many of the artifacts that have been discovered on the site. Statuary in stone and marble, and armor and domestic utensils in bronze were

Statuary, Olympia

displayed in a chronologically ordered series of galleries. It was superb.

One does not have to view Greek sculpture very long before a pattern begins to emerge. The head of virtually every statue is missing, or if not missing the facial features are obliterated. The reason for this, we are told, is that Greece was for 400 years under the rule of Turkey and Islam. Allah the Merciful does not tolerate graven images and so the heads of these pagan gods had to roll. I found this to be troubling at first but soon remembered that the record of Christianity in the Americas and the South Pacific was not dissimilar. The main difference was that Muslims apparently can appreciate beauty and so they at least left the torso and limbs undamaged. By the way, statuary of the Roman era could be a little different because the Romans would carve one regally or militarily clad torso and then just mount the new head of whomever was in vogue at that moment. Those crazy Romans!

Anyway, Anitazizi then marched us off to a large retail establishment where we went through the whole shill thing again and then were set loose to SHOP. Following which we boarded the bus and retraced our tracks back to Patras and over the wonderful bridge. We were told of the engineering challenges faced in building this thing, not the least of which included tectonic-plate movement that could change the span required to go from one side of the narrows to the other (the bridge is currently just under 2 miles in length). In any event we made it over in one piece so no harm was done.

Ancient Delphi is now one of my four or five favourite places on this earth. There is a magical sense to it that I attribute to its place in mythology - being the home of the Oracle of Delphi, to its location - perched high up the side of a mountain with spectacular views in every direction, and to its sense of architectural symmetry that sites each of its major features in the one perfect place.

The Sacred Way forms a backward letter "S" as it winds it way through the market place and up past the various "treasuries" to the Temple of Apollo where the Oracle spoke as the voice of the God.

Temple of Apollo, Delphi

The stone work along this route is remarkable with each piece fitting exactly into the irregular shape required of it by its surrounding. The Sacred path ends at the Theater which has a jewel-like

Theater, Delphi

quality in contrast to the enormity of Epidaurus (the latter seats 14,000 in contrast to 5,000 at Delphi). From the Theater, looking down toward the valley, the three restored columns of a tholos - a domed, circular structure - stand in absolute perfection between the ruins of two Temples of Athena.PHOTO_ID_R=tholosx-delphi.jpg] Further up the hill beyond the Theater is the Stadium whose measurements are a duplication of the one at Olympia. At Delphi, stone tiers of spectator seats that were installed by the Romans, are still intact.

Ancient Delphi is remarkably well preserved. It was stunning to learn the reason for this: the site lay entirely buried for centuries and the small town of Kastri sat on top of it until archeological excavations began in the late 1800's. The inhabitants of Kastri were relocated and the work of removing many hundreds of years of scree and detritus began, eventually revealing this most magical, and perhaps most spiritual of Greek antiquities. Night was falling as we exited the site.

Sunrise, Delphi

We began the following day with a visit to the Museum that was built to house and display the treasures found in Delphi. These artifacts are presented in a manner that suggest great sensitivity and respect for their importance on the world stage.