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Ancient Mediterranean + Europe
Course: Ancient Mediterranean + Europe > Unit 6
Lesson 3: Daedalic and Archaic- Tiny Timelines: Archaic Greece in a global context
- Kouroi and Korai, an introduction
- Lady of Auxerre
- New York Kouros
- New York Kouros
- Marble Statue of a kouros
- Anavysos Kouros
- Anavysos Kouros
- The Kouroi of Kleobis and Biton
- Peplos Kore from the Acropolis
- Peplos Kore
- Ancient Greek temples at Paestum, Italy
- Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi
- Siphnian Treasury, Delphi
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Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi
Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- WAIT A SECONDis that the Peplos Kore? on the right of the left picture 4:19(2 votes)
- I see the artistry in the architecture and hear the grandeur of the place as it once was. I wonder regarding the theater: Was it constructed just to be there, or were there actually performances held there after its dedication? In other words, was the transactional aspect of the religious practice sufficiently served by paying for the construction, or was the theater actually used in a way that made further transactions possible through sponsoring performances?(2 votes)
- The theater was indeed used. I suspect that benefit resulted both from its construction and its use.(2 votes)
- Who excavated the Sanctuary and when was it discovered?(1 vote)
- In 1893 the French Archaeological School removed vast quantities of soil from numerous landslides to reveal both the major buildings and structures of the sanctuary of Apollo and of Athena Pronoia along with thousands of objects, inscriptions and sculptures.[39] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi#Excavations(2 votes)
- So I see that the priestess would actually have been sitting next to a chasm, but in most maps I've found I don't actually see any chasm. Does anyone know where it might have been?(1 vote)
- why did the people not question the gods.(1 vote)
- What do they do in thearters(1 vote)
- In theatres they perform plays, which are live shows with no screen or technology.(1 vote)
- I like the way they had a priestess that the god Apollo could only speak to.(0 votes)
Video transcript
(jazz music) - [Voiceover] Sitting here overlooking the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi makes it really clear to
me why the Greeks believed that the Gods dwelled on a mountain. - [Male Voiceover] Well we
have this glorious view. - [Female Voiceover] I
feel on top of the world. It makes sense. The Greeks practiced their religion in places called sanctuaries that became complexes of many buildings. - [Male Voiceover] This is
one of the most important Pan-Hellenic sanctuaries. What that means is that
it was not controlled by one city state, but it was a place that Greeks came from numerous city states from all over Greece. - [Female Voiceover]
Therefore Pan-Hellenic across Greece. The Sanctuary at Olympia
is another example of Pan-Hellenic sanctuary. - [Male Voiceover] Now
of course in that case, Greeks from all over came to compete in athletic games, but Olympia also had an oracle that is a priestess who had a
connection to the Gods, but here at Delphi this
was perhaps the single-most important sanctuary because
here although there were games, there were musical competitions and there were sporting competitions. This was the place with the
single-most important oracle. That is with the priestess
who could help decide major political and even private issues. - [Female Voiceover] The
priestess here at Delphi, the oracle was called the Pythia and she made her pronouncements. She answered questions from the temple that we're looking at now. - [Male Voiceover] When she did this, she was seated behind
a curtain we believe. She was seated on a tripod and over a kind of chasm
that went into the earth and according to traditions that go back at least to the ninth century, this was a way that she
connected directly to the God Apollo. - [Female Voiceover]
Right, a way that Apollo could speak through her and so we're in a space
that is entirely sacred to the God Apollo. - [Male Voiceover] So according
to the ancient reports we have, the way this would work is somebody of high stature
with significant wealth or political power would come with a very specific question, often a yes or no question. They would give it to one
of the priestess' assistants and that would then be
read to the priestess who was behind a curtain. She would make a pronouncement which would then be interpreted so that it could be understandable by the assistant priests. - [Female Voiceover] So as
a Pan-Hellenic sanctuary, as a sanctuary for all Greeks, this was a place where one could really show off the wealth and the power of your city state. The primary way that
city states could do that was by building treasuries. Now, treasuries were
often small buildings. They weren't peripteral, but as we normally think
about a Greek temple as having columns all around it. Instead they had columns in the front and they were mostly
storehouses for objects that were being offered
dedicated to the God. It's important to remember I think that Greek religion was transactional. That people gave gifts to the Gods and in turn the Gods favored them. - [Male Voiceover] This might be booty that was taken in war. It might be the result
of some other kind of good fortune, but there's no question that that transactional
aspect was important. You wanted to give as much as you could to the Sanctuary of Apollo in order to stay in Apollo's good graces. - [Female Voiceover] And
so when visitors came to the sanctuary, they walked up, what was
called the sacred way and they passed by numerous treasury buildings built by numerous Greek city states or what the Greeks called the polis. - [Male Voiceover] Now you can imagine how competitive this was because each city state was showing off against the other. - [Female Voiceover]
Right and we can look down at the reconstructed treasury built by the city state of Athens. - [Male Voiceover] That's a great example. Just beside it, we believe that there had once been a huge pile of booty that they had
taken from the Persians at the Battle of Marathon. - [Female Voiceover] Right, which they won against great odds and so you really could understand why they would thank the
Gods for that victory. - [Male Voiceover] It's one
of the larger treasuries and it's in a very prominent place, just below the Athenian treasury is a smaller treasury, which was, according to reports, the most lavishly decorated
of all the treasuries here. This belonged to the
small island of Siphnos in the south of the Aegean Sea. - [Female Voiceover] And the Siphneans were especially wealthy because they had gold and silver mines so they could afford to build a really lavish treasury. - [Male Voiceover] The
treasuries were stacked up over each other in such a steep space. - [Female Voiceover]
Well you wound your way back and forth to go up to the very top of the sanctuary where we see the theater. - [Male Voiceover] Well most
sanctuaries had a theater. The most famous probably, the theater Epidaurus which was an important
sanctuary for healing. - [Female Voiceover]
This is a good reminder that theater was connected
to religious practice and it's interesting to know too the form of the theater we
have the actors on the bottom and the seats rising up above
built into the hillside. Imagine sitting in that theater, looking down past the actors, to this amazing view of the temple and the valley beyond. (jazz music)