The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2019 by Sy Montgomery

Author:Sy Montgomery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HMH Books

KEVIN KRAJICK

The Scientific Detectives Probing the Secrets of Ancient Oracles

from Atlas Obscura

One hot spring day, two scientists began climbing a steep, boulder-strewn ridge near Selcuk, in southwestern Turkey. The few stunted pines sprinkled here and there offered little shade. “Don’t touch the rocks with your hands too much,” warned their guide. “Scorpions.” Several hundred feet up, a dark, narrow opening pierced the slope. They climbed in and descended about 20 feet to the floor of a small, cool cavern. In the indirect sunlight, they could see stalactites lacing the walls, and curving passages, too small to enter, spiraling down. A newly shed snakeskin lay on the floor. At the rear, five natural steps led up to a rock formation resembling a tangle of human bones. They had found their quarry—an oracle of Cybele, earth goddess of Asia Minor, curer of disease, granter of fertility, seer of all things. From prehistoric times until 2,000 years ago, and perhaps longer, people came to this cave to ask Cybele the same questions we ask today. Whom should I marry? How can I make more money? How long will I live? Today, we have therapists and algorithms, risk analysts and actuarial charts. The ancients had oracles.

The scientists were John Hale, an archaeologist from the University of Louisville, and Jelle Zeilinga de Boer, a geologist from Wesleyan University. They had formed themselves into a sort of oracle detective team, seeking out the sites of these ancient prognosticators and attempting to figure out why they are located where they are and what role they played in the ancient world.

Around 50 BC the Roman politician Cicero wrote, “As far as I know, there is no nation whatever, however polished and learned, or however barbarous and uncivilized, which does not believe it is possible that future events maybe be indicated, and understood.” Oracles were the most famous and enduring institutions of the ancient world. The best known was Greece’s Oracle of Delphi, where, for at least 1,000 years, kings and common pilgrims visited a cave where a priestess leaned over a sacred spring and inhaled from it the breath of the god. Elsewhere, the future was divined via haruspicy, the reading of organs from sacrificed animals; empyromancy, the interpretation of flickering flames; or augury, which involved observing lightning flashes and other phenomena. At Dodona, priests of Zeus were said to hear the future in the rustling leaves of a sacred oak. At Sura, on the Turkish coast, it was in the patterns of fish congregating around a magical whirlpool. On earthquake-prone Mount Garganus in Italy, the method was incubation: A supplicant performed purification rituals, slaughtered a black ram, and slept on its skin in the sanctuary. That night’s dream held portents, interpreted by a resident priest. At the Cybele shrine visited by Hale and de Boer, divination apparently involved dice made from the knucklebones of sheep. Thousands have been found at its entrance, along with votive statues, coins, and other offerings.

Almost all these sites had one thing in common.

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