What Really Happened At Delphi Summary

Prophecy and Geology: What Really Happened at Delphi For centuries, the people of ancient Greece would travel far and wide to seek the advice of the Oracle at Delphi, a woman believed to be blessed with the power of foresight by the Olympian God, Apollo. She was known to go down to her temple and breathe in “sacred vapors” (Broad, 2002) before speaking her prophecies. What was actually happening was that she was breathing in petrochemicals, vapors that can cause visions and a feeling of euphoria, coming from small fissures in the ground. The study of the geological forces acting upon Delphi can explain the truth behind the myth and why the Ancient Greeks believed what they did. The Temple of Apollo was located in Delphi on the south slope of Mount Parnassus (de

de Boer, while conducting geological surveys near Delphi, noticed a visible fault on both the east and west sides of Mount Parnassus that appeared to run under the Temple of Apollo. This led him to investigate further, with the help of Dr. John Hale, and found that a 13-mile fault did exist along the southern flank of Mt. Parnassus. They named it the Delphi Fault, and also located another fault, called the Kerna Fault, which followed a line of springs under the temple. Dr. de Boer believed that this fault intersects the Delphi Fault nearby Apollo’s sanctuary (de Boer and Hale, 2002). He didn’t observe the intersection, but was able to estimate it by following the fault trajectories of the Kerna and Delphi faults (de Boer et al., 2001). He also found that the reason the possibility of the mystic vapors existing was dismissed by scientists in the past was because the French archeological team that excavated the site in the 1880s was expecting to see a large chasm. But all they found was that the bedrock under the temple was “fissured by the action of waters,” which wasn’t deemed strong enough evidence to suggest that the vapors were real (de Boer and Hale, 2002). Dr. de Boer thought