Delphi: The Bellybutton of the Ancient World Page #3

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I'm on my way to one of the

oldest sacred places in the area.

It lies even higher up Parnassus,

behind the Delphi peaks,

right off the tourist map.

It was one of the many places

where the ancients came

to make offerings

to their many gods.

This is the Corycian cave,

sacred to Pan, the god of

the countryside, and to the Muses.

It was only in 1969, some

eight decades after Delphi began

to be excavated, that scholars began

to investigate this place properly.

What they found was amazing.

Some of the objects had been

put here nearly 7,000 years ago,

long before the Oracle

at Delphi began to develop.

Most of them weren't as old as that,

but all of them were very different

from the statues and great buildings

the French had found at Delphi.

They found lots of things

like this in the cave.

Perfume jars,

small oil flasks, things like...

necklaces,

and rings.

They're all very low-key,

very personal,

and demonstrate the close

and continuous relationship

between the local Delphians

and their visitors,

coming here to worship

their local gods in this cave.

Offerings in places like this were

designed to keep the gods on-side.

But the excavators discovered the cave was

more than just a place to make offerings.

There was something else found here.

In fact, 25,000 knucklebones,

animal knucklebones.

Now knucklebones in ancient Greece

were used by kids as part of a game.

And they may have been dedicated

here at the cave

as part of a ceremony

that symbolised the transition

between childhood and adulthood,

on the eve of marriage, for example.

But about 20% of these knucklebones

were also inscribed with the names

of gods, and some of them

looked like dice.

In fact, we also found dice,

ancient dice, here in the cave.

Now this is interesting, because

dice are sometimes associated with

a cheaper, easier Oracle.

So the cave was also used for

divination, a simple kind of Oracle.

The aim was to lift the curtain

between the natural world and the

supernatural world of the gods.

This cave was an arena for

spiritual communication

going back thousands

and thousands of years.

But down below, in the sanctuary

of Apollo at Delphi,

it was all on a very

different scale.

Here you had farmers,

shepherds, local villagers

coming to consult

perhaps a dice Oracle.

Down below you had

tyrants, cities,

emperors, kings, coming

to ask their questions.

Questions that would define

the history of the ancient world.

Although the Delphic Oracle emerged

from traditions like this,

Delphi itself began

as a typical settlement

of the high country

of central Greece.

And the earliest remains indicate not a

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