Posts tagged Delphi
A busy week
Mar 8th
I’ve finally worked out why I feel so rushed. Once reason is that I am rushed, but the other is I’m losing two days a week at the moment going in to various hospitals. Apart from the lack of time I’m feeling fine. I’ve stopped bleeding and hopefully should pass the assessment next week to take chemotherapy.
One thing I’d been planning to record presentations and put them on the web when I’d moved on to the next one, but I’d never got around to producing a final version of the Delphinus presentation. This week I was on the 365 Days of Astronomypodcast for Apollo’s birthday. I needed supporting material for the IScience website, so I finally got round to recording the presentation.
[vodpod id=Groupvideo.2185678&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]Sadly that’s around four years out-of-date. There’s a follow-up paper I’m writing which will have information a couple more festivals. I’ve mentioned a connection between Spica and the Thesmophoria before briefly. I had a paper finished, but while polishing it I found it could be improved by looking at it from another perspective. The re-worked version should be finished in June.
Next week I’ll put up another recorded presentation which is about 2 years out-of-date but which is closer More >
Classical Athens and the Delphic Oracle: Divination and Democracy by Hugh Bowden
Aug 11th
Also posted to Revise and Dissent.
Athens is the city that gave the world democracy. While the idea has been inherited, the reality was rather different to a modern democracy. In ancient Athens all the citizens voted on the laws, whereas these days people vote for people who vote for the laws. Or even vote for the person who will unilaterally decide the laws for themselves. While that might make Athens more democratic, in some ways Athens was also less free. Certainly all the citizens voted but so be a citizen you had to be male, quite old and the son of Athenian parents. If your parents were slaves or metics (resident foreigners or Athenians deprived of citizen status) then you had no vote. A lot of these differences are the meat and drink of usual studies into ancient democracy. But it wasn’t just the human world which was viewed differently, so was the divine. This is the subject Bowden’s book Classical Athens and the Delphic Oracle: Divination and Democracy examines, the relationship between the will of the Gods and the will of the people in ancient Athens. Specifically he looks at the will of Apollo as it was revealed by the Delphic Oracle. More >
Sky At Night Magazine
Mar 1st
Sky at Night Magazine is astoundingly good this month, though I’ll admit my opinion might be coloured by the fact my research is mentioned on the front cover. Apart from a page on Delphi, there’s also Pyramids and Stonehenge which you’d expect in any general archaeoastronomy article. However, there are two problems dealt with really well. One is the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes by Hipparchus and the problem of how the flooding of the Nile ceased to coincide with the heliacal rising of Sirius. The other is the circumnavigation of Africa.
This is a tale from Herodotus, where he tells of some Phoenician sailors who claimed to have sailed around Africa. The reason Herodotus disbelieves the story is they claim the sun changes position if you sail south, so that it passes to the north. This, naturally, was considered utter nonsense. It is nonetheless true which suggests the story is genuine. There’s additional reason to accept the story as the currents around Africa would make a clockwise circumnavigation easier than travelling down the west coast and back up the east.
Secret of Delphi Found in Ancient Text
Feb 28th
While getting some stuff together it was pointed out that I don’t have a copy of my press release on my own site which could make life awkward if the sites I’m linking to shut down. So as I’ve not got time to write anything today here it is.
The Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Photo Alun Salt.Researchers at the University of Leicester have unravelled a 2,700 year old mystery concerning The Oracle of Delphi – by consulting an ancient farmer’s manual. (more…)
Dolphin Watching translated
Nov 28th
I’ve found more translations based on the press release I sent out about Delphi. In addition to English, you can now read it in Greek («Διάβασαν» το μυστικό της Πυθίας), Italian, (Segreto Di Delfi In Un Antico Testo) and, amazingly, in Hungarian (A csillagok jelezték Delphoi szertartásait).
I’ve been asked for a third version for the WAC volume on the Heavens Above session. I’m not sure if that’s going to happen. There’s enough new material for the second paper for the journal Archaeoastronomy, but I don’t want to recycle old material as new for the WAC volume. What I’d like to offer is a paper looking at how seriously you can test the claims made. I think there are problems, but not all of them are as bad as they seem. Efrosyni, who I’ve been co-authoring with isn’t keen on this as the problems I want to discuss are fairly basic.
I have been getting sick of it. I’ve been lacking inspiration and a little overworked, so writing something for Archaeoastronomy that doesn’t sound like it’s going through the motions is difficult. The Antiquity version had at least 30 drafts. I say at least, as for a month there were several drafts all marked More >
I’m in the National Press
Nov 8th
The nation in question is Greece. Thanks to everyone who mentioned the articles in Τα ΝΕΑ and news.in.gr.
I could link to a translation by World Lingo, but it appears to be a translation of the press release which was picked up by a German site (in English).
Where else might Delphinus have been used?
Sep 14th
It’s all very well coming up with a story that works for Delphi, but this could be a case of fitting the facts to the theory. Is there anywhere else where a cult of Apollo Delphinios may have used the rising of Delphinus to time when to offer sacrifices?
Greek months are usually named after the major festival in them. It seemed reasonable therefore to look for months called Delphinios, which would be months when a major event involving Apollo Delphinios would be held. If you find an event that doesn’t match then then it’s a serious problem. An almost equally serious problem was that I only know of three months named Delphinios, all from Catherine Trumpy’s recent book in Greek months. (more…)
Is there any evidence that Delphinus was used to keep time?
Sep 13th
For all the speculation that Delphinus was used to time rituals, there is a still a major problem. Namely that they would appear to be a daft bunch of stars to choose. They glimmer at around magnitude 3.5 to 4, which is faint. There are hundreds of brighter stars, so can we be sure that these were observed to mark the year and if so why?
The easiest question to answer is “Was Delphinus used to mark time in the ancient world”, because the answer is yes. At least the answer is known to be yes at least as early as the fifth century BC. We know this because around this time two Greek astronomer working in Athens created a parapegma.
A parapegma is a stone pillar. It has holes carved into it to hold a wooden peg, and next to each hole a description of the day. As the days pass, so you would move the peg from hole to hole, making it a public calendar. By the sides of these holes would be other notes. These could be comments on the weather, like “Today the wind comes from the north”. There were also astronomical observations like “Today the Bird [Cygnus] More >
Is Delphi really connected with Dolphins?
Sep 12th
Delphi – it’s a long way uphill.
In town there’s a princess waiting outside the photographers for her prints. Like her, could I be disappointed to find with Delphi and Delphinus, that just because words sound similar they’re not necessarily connected?
It seems possible. Delphi is a town that’s found two thousand feet up a hillside in central Greece. You can see the sea from Delphi, but it’s distant and a long walk. If you were going to set up a sanctuary to a dolphin god, Delphi would probably be near the bottom of the list of likely sites. There are a couple of reasons to think that the constellation Delphinus could be connected with Apollo Delphinios and Delphi. The simplest reason is that someone has told us so. (more…)
Archaic Astronomy and Heliacal Rising
Sep 10th
Some time in the eighth century BC Hesiod, a farmer in central Greece, had a problem. He and his brother inherited a farm. However Hesiod had inherited the smaller share of the farm. He blamed his misfortune on his brother, Perses. Perses, Hesiod said, has bribed the magistrates. We know this because Hesiod was concerned his feckless brother was going to ruin his farm and so he wrote a farming manual. This manual, Works and Days, is possibly the oldest Greek text we have and reveals quite a lot about how the archaic Greeks saw their world. It also left Hesiod the last say in the argument and some the earliest words from ancient Greece a whinge against another man.
Perses, lay up these things in your heart, and do not let that Strife who delights in mischief hold your heart back from work, while you peep and peer and listen to the wrangles of the court-house. Little concern has he with quarrels and courts who has not a year’s victuals laid up betimes, even that which the earth bears, Demeter’s grain. When you have got plenty of that, you can raise disputes and strive to get another’s goods. But More >
