Greek Mythology

Apollo drew his bow and fired arrow after arrow into the deadly pythondragon guarding the sacred ground of Ge, the goddess of the earth. With his victory, Apollo gained the right to call the slopes of Delphi his earthly sanctuary. It is a beautiful myth. Out of it grew the story of the Oracle of Delphi, a soothsayer who inhaled the breath of Apollo. The Pythia, the priestess who sat on a tripod inhaling fumes from the bowels of the earth, went into trances and muttered incomprehensible phrases, helpfully interpreted by her priestly assistants. The Oracle at Delphi is one of several myths now being investigated by geologists to see whether such stories have any basis in fact. The relatively new science of ge-omythology could provide rational explanations for mythical events. But studying elements ofa myth may also lead to new insights or discoveries in geology - a science that took its name from that same goddess, Ge.

In the case of the Oracle at Delphi, the focus has been on the nature of the fumes that may have influenced the prophecies. For 10 centuries, successive Pythias issued their oracles to the thousands of pilgrims who made their way to Apollo's shrine at Delphi. The Pythias were real enough, although their prophecies were often ambiguous. But could their trance-like states have had a basis in geological reality? Could there really have been a gas released from under Apollo's shrine that induced transcendental states in someone sitting on a tripod above a fissure in the ground? An archaeological excavation early in the 20th century found no signs of a real chasm or fissure under the temple at Delphi, but studies over the past decade have revealed the presence of two geological faultsthat cross each other directly under the shrine. Luigi Piccardi, a geologist at the Institute for Geosciences in Florence, says recent investigations have revealed that there could indeed have been a gas-exhaling chasm at the oracle site. If this chasm existed, it has long since sealed itself, Piccardi says. "The oracle site is positioned directly across the surface trace of a seismic fault that could rupture during earthquakes, thus creating a fissure in the ground from which gases such as carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphate or methane could originate," he says.

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To begin, here are seven reasons why it is very obvious that Athena is Eve:

1. The Judeo-Christian tradition traces the current state of humanity back to a woman, a serpent, and a tree. Athena's idol-image shows us the woman and the serpent, but where is the tree? The very core of the statue is wood—a tree. In both the Greek and Judeo-Christian traditions, a tree is at the core of what happened between a woman and a serpent. (the term tree is often used symbolically to represent a person or an angel for example, "the bad tree is hewn down and cast into the lake of fire").

2. Athena’s very name speaks of Eve. In Genesis 3:4, the serpent promised Eve that when she ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil “you shall not surely die.” In the most ancient Greek writing, the name of the goddess first appears as ATHANA. The word THANATOS in ancient Greek means death. A-THANATOS signifies deathlessness. A-thana is the shortened form of A-thanatos meaning the deathless one, or more specifically, the embodiment of the serpent’s promise to Eve that she would never die, but would be as the gods, knowing good and evil. Through Athana(tos), later called Athena, the serpent has made good his promise to Eve (Athena and Eden, Chapter 3).

3. Note that the serpent rises up next to Athena as a friend. In Genesis, Yahweh had condemned the serpent to crawl on its belly as a deceiver of humanity, yet all who entered the Parthenon to worship or admire the great statue were forced to look up to both Athena and the serpent. That is because the Greek religious system, the very opposite of the Judeo-Christian, was based on the notion that the serpent had enlightened humanity in paradise.

4. Athena holds Nike in her right hand, the hand of power. Nike symbolizes Victory—Eve’s victory for humanity when she ate the fruit offered by the serpent. Athena is the only goddess in Greek art who is ever pictured holding Nike...

Alexander the Great, whose tomb has been missing for nearly 2,000 years, could be buried in Broome in Western Australia, a Perth man says. Macedonian-born Tim Tutungis told ABC Kimberley that he first heard the 'Broomer' from his old mate, Lou Batalis."We just got onto the subject of Alexander The Great's tomb, and he said, 'They'll never ever find it, no matter where they look, because Alexander the Great is buried in Broome, in Western Australia'," Mr Tutungis said. "Approximately 50 years ago, some guy went into a cave in Broome and he saw some inscriptions inthere and they looked like ancient Greek."He reported it to the government, then the government went and saw it and they confirmed there were some inscriptions there. "They went to the Greek community and they asked the community, 'Is there anyone here who can read ancient Greek?' "Naturally Louis Batalis put his hand up and said, 'Yes, I went to school in Egypt, I got educated, I can read it'.

So they took him up there and he defined the inscriptions as saying, in ancient Greek, 'Alexander the Great'. "The government did say to him at that time, 'You didn't see this, OK, this never happened'."

History's mystery Alexander the Great died on June 11, 323 BC, probably from malaria, alcoholism orpoisoning. One traditionally accepted story says his body was placed in two gold caskets in a gold carriage. Another says his body was preserved in a clay jar filled with honey and that this was placed in a glass coffin. Some historians say Alexander's general and friend, Ptolemy, stole the body and took it to Alexandria, while others say Roman Emperor Caligula looted the tomb and stole Alexander's breastplate. According to some sources, Emperor Septimius Severus closed Alexander's tomb about 200 AD, and little is known of the body's whereabouts after that. Mr Tutungis says he is 99 per cent convinced Mr Batalis told him the truth, because people "have looked everywhere" for Alexander's grave, to no avail. He says his friend is a very old man now and has virtually lost hismemory,......

It's not hard to see why Zeus was such a popular god with the ancient Greeks. He not only wielded a thunderbolt, but he also got into all sorts of trouble, including liaisons with humans and goddesses - much to the annoyance of his wife, Hera.Greek gods were figures people could relate to, said archaeologist David Romano of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. And worshiping Zeus apparently involved some serious partying. Working at the remote Mount Lykaion in Greece, Romano has found"evidence of a drinking party and possibly feasting" around a famous altar built on the 4,500-foot peak.

These relics go back 3,200 years, about the time the earliest stone tablets started to refer to Zeus as the godfather of the gods."What's new is this mountaintop altar had cult activity that's continuous from the Mycenaean to the Hellenistic periods," Romano said, meaning between the 14th and second centuries B.C. At various depths, he and colleagues have unearthed silver coins and other Zeus icons, including a tiny bronze hand with a silver lightning bolt. Romano will speak on his latest finds tomorrow at 6 p.m. at the Penn Museum. Mount Lykaion is mentioned in myth as the birthplace of Zeus,Romano said, and it appears no one lived on the desolate peak, though the view is spectacular. For hundreds of years, people apparently hiked there for religious ceremonies and feasts. Last year, Romano announced that the site contained primitive pottery shards that go back to the end of the Neolithic or New Stone Age period, more than 5,000 years ago, before the first Greek-speaking people arrived. He suspects this material stems from some sort of religious or cult activity. But no one knows if the deity before Zeus was a party animal, too.

Copyright: Philadelphia Inquirer