the oracle of delphi

By: Jelle Zeilinga de Boer and John R. Hale

According to Strabo and other sources, the Pythia who gave prophecies on behalf of Apollo was inspired by mysterious vapors. Is there evidence that intoxicating gases actually drifted through the Temple of Apollo at Delphi?

By: Harrison Eiteljorg, II

The rebuilding of the Acropolis in the fifth century B.C.E. was the inspiration of the leader Pericles (c. 495–429 B.C.E.), who appointed the sculptor Phidias to supervise the entire project.

By: Robin Ngo

AnneMarie Luijendijk has identified a previously unknown Late Antique text containing oracles called The Gospel of the Lots of Mary.

By: Michael B. Poliakoff

Three ancient Olympic combat events—wrestling, boxing and pancratium—reveal much about the aspirations and values of ancient Greece, about what was deemed honorable, fair and beautiful, both in the eyes of those of who competed and those who traveled to Olympia to watch.

By: Daniel Ogden

When seeking “hidden” knowledge, ancient Greeks and Romans visited sacred oracles and consulted necromancers, who communed with the dead. The necromancer’s art often involved strange journeys, sleep-and-dreaming rituals and even blood sacrifices—since the ghostly shades were thought to need a tonic of fresh blood to become reanimated. Our modern fascination with exorcism and vampires suggests that necromancy is hardly dead.

By: Noah Wiener

Italian archaeologists excavating the Phrygian city of Hierapolis in southwestern Turkey uncovered the remains of Pluto’s Gate, a site considered an entrance into the underworld in the Greco-Roman period.

By: Diane Harris Cline

One way we protect our things is to label them. Ancient Greeks were no different when it came to such practices, including two famous fifth-century B.C.E. Athenians.

By: Glenn J. Corbett

Three thousand years ago, when alphabetic writing had just begun to spread across the masses of the ancient Near East, written words were far more than idle marks meant simply to be read.

By: Robin Ngo

Archaeologists working at the Greek site of Olympia, home of the ancient Olympic Games, discovered a Roman-period clay tablet containing 13 lines of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey.

By: Frank Holt

When the known world proved too small, Alexander the Great set his sights east. At its height, Alexander’s empire stretched east to India, north to the Danube River and south to the upper Nile.