Delphi Museum and the Korykian Cave

According to Pausanias, the first temple was bui,lt of laurel wood, the second of beeswax and feathers. The third of bronze. The mythic tradition meets history with the 6th century temple, sometimes called the 'Alcmaeonid' temple. It was constructed in the 6th century BCE, and the Alcmaeonid family, exiled from Athens, contracted to do some of the work. The family went further than the contract specified and, at its own expense, had the east facade constructed of expensive marble.

There's not much left of the Alcmaeonid temple. These horses were part of the expensive east pediment and were part of a sculpture group depicting Apollo's arrival at Delphi in a chariot.









Here you can see a remnant from the other side - the cheaper side - of the temple. This is probably a piece of Athena killing a giant.











These two kouroi have been identified as Kleobis and Biton. Herodotus 1.31 relates their story. The Athenian Solon, visiting the Lydian king Croesus (that's right - the rich guy), refuses to call Croesus the happiest man on earth. He first names Tellus, who died in battle. For second (and, I suppose third) place, Solon credits these two Argives with being the happiest.

In Herodotus' words: "there was a festival of Hera in Argos, and their mother absolutely had to be conveyed to the temple by a team of oxen. But their oxen had not come back from the fields in time, so the youths took the yoke upon their own shoulders under constraint of time. They drew the wagon, with their mother riding atop it, traveling five miles until they arrived at the temple. [3] When they had done this and had been seen by the entire gathering, their lives came to an excellent end, and in their case the god made clear that for human beings it is a better thing to die than to live. The Argive men stood around the youths and congratulated them on their strength; the Argive women congratulated their mother for having borne such children. [4] She was overjoyed at the feat and at the praise, so she stood before the image and prayed that the goddess might grant the best thing for man to her children Kleobis and Biton, who had given great honor to the goddess. [5] After this prayer they sacrificed and feasted. The youths then lay down in the temple and went to sleep and never rose again; death held them there. The Argives made and dedicated at Delphi statues of them as being the best of men.”

I'm not absolutely convinced that these are the Argive brothers, but there apparently is an inscription on one of the bases (it was too faded for me to try to read it). At any rate, it is a good story.

The Naxian Sphinx originally stood on a column over 30 feet high near the temple of Apollo.












The Siphnian treasury, built by the people of the island of Siphnos in the 6th century BC, had a pretty remarkable frieze depicting the battle between the gods and giants. Most interesting (to me), the giants were shown as fighting in a phalanx formation; that is, in a line with overlapping shields.

This probably represents a reaction to the democratizing effect phalanx warfare had on ancient Greece. Before the invention of the phalanx, aristocratic Greeks (like those of Iliad and Odyssey) fought in single combat. With the phalanx, however, more men were needed, and thus more men were able to claim political rights: let us have a say or we won't fight. Assumedly, it was an aristocratic element from Siphnos which footed most of the bill for the treasury's construction.
Here, you can clearly see the three hoplites on the right fighting as a phalanx. Their comrade, who has apparently broken ranks (from a forward rank, perhaps) is running away and being cut down by the gods. Phalanx warfare only worked as long as the line held.








A close-up of the relief above. The artists has inscribed his name on the shield of the hoplite on the right.











The Korykian cave was sacred to Pan and the Nymphs. It was also a good hideout for the people of Delphi when foreign armies invaded from the times of the Persian Wars to the Nazi invasion.

I crawled back about 1/2 mile into this thing, scrambling over cave formations and getting all muddy. Good times.





When the French excavated the cave in the late 60s/early 70s, they discovered thousands of 'knucklebones,' animal ankle bones that are about the size of a human knuckle. Ancient Greeks used them as dice and they were often dedicated at sanctuaries. Here are some knucklebones we found in the cave. The coin is a 1 Euro piece, about the size of a US quarter (for scale). Don't worry, we returned the knucklebones to the cave so that the next group of people could find them too. (it's illegal to keep artifacts).