The town of Delphi in Greece is now a tourist center, but two thousand years ago, not tourists, but numerous pilgrims came here. They disembarked from ships and climbed the mountains, where among the sacred olive grove stood a sanctuary dedicated to the sun god Apollo. According to legend, at this place the son of Zeus killed the dragon Python, who guarded the cleft, giving people the gift of prophecy. Since that time, special priestesses - named Pythia after the dragon - prophesied their fate to people and answered questions regarding the future. There were many such sanctuaries in ancient Greece, but the most revered was the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.
It is located at the foot of Mount Parnassus. Since this place has been revered since the third millennium BC. before the 4th century AD, there are very many references to him and the order of prophecies operating in the oracle complex. All chroniclers claim that the temple of Apollo stood over a crevice from which underground gases rose. Only girls who had the gift of prophecy were accepted as priestesses. While they performed their functions as Pythians, they kept vows of chastity, and only then, leaving the service, did they get married.
The visitor brought a gift to the temple and asked his question, which was written on a wax tablet. Found in huge numbers and belonging to different times, they indicate that the pilgrims were interested in the same dilemmas: whether a spouse is cheating, whether one can rely on this or that person, and whether this or that trading operation will bring benefits. Pythia, having previously taken a bath, descended into the adyton - an underground chamber under the base of the temple - and sat on a tripod. She inhaled the vapors and fell into a trance. Her incoherent speech was interpreted by the oracle of Delphi - a special priest, guessing the divination of the gods in the strange muttering of the priestess.
But archaeological excavations conducted on this site since the 19th century have not found any cracks under the temple. Scholars Adolphe Oppe and Pierre Amandri stated in their articles that Pythia, divination and the Delphic oracle are nothing more than a large scam that lasted several centuries, as a result of which the priests of the temple profited from the innocence of pilgrims. However, in the case of the temple of Apollo at Delphi, a rare situation occurred when modern science did not refute, but confirmed the myth of the miracles that took place in the sanctuary.
In the 1980s, volcanological studies of the layers occurring in this place were carried out. It was found that the faults, through which the products of magmatic activity could rise, run from the east and west straight to the place where the Pythia sat, and where the Delphic oracle answered questions. The aditon room was 2-3 meters below ground level, as if it was designed to capture and contain the gas coming from the crevice. But what was the substance that drugged the priestess and put her into a trance?
Plutarch mentions that the "pneuma" that the Pythia inhaled had a sweet smell. Back in the 20s of the twentieth century, the chemist Isabella Herb found that a 20% solution of ethylene leads a person into unconsciousness, and a weaker dose causes a trance state. Archaeologists Higgins in 1996 suggested that the voice of the gods, which proclaimed the Pythia and proclaimed the Delphic oracle, was inspired by ethylene vapor mixed with carbon dioxide. This conclusion was prompted by the study of another temple of Apollo in Gieraiolis (Asia Minor), where this mixture still penetrates from the layers of the earth to the surface. In Delphi, after several major earthquakes, the fissure closed and the "source of revelation" dried up.
