DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14696#0246
The Delphic Omphalos i8g
were two, not one, is hardly to be explained as a device of heraldry1,
or the result of a desire for symmetry2, or an attempt to represent
both sides of a single bird3, or a juxtaposition of memory pictures4.
Rather it illustrates Usener's law of religious development5: the
eagles are Augenblicksgotter that have not yet coalesced into a
Sondergott.
But 1 am far from supposing that we have thus exhausted the
import of the Delphic omphalos. It will not do to blink the ques-
tion : Why was a particular mound of earth reduced to a com-
pact shape and safeguarded by a whole network of fillets ? When
W. H. Roscher shows that the term omphalos was used of earth's
central point6, he does indeed insist upon a truth which helps to
explain a variety of data, but he does not—to my thinking—really
get down to the root of things. For, after all, early man was (pace
Piette7) a poor mathematician and knew little of circles and centres.
No, we must assume that to him the word omphalos meant just
what it says—'the navel,' that is, the navel of the human bod}-, not
the hub of the universe. Now there is reason to believe that the
Delphic cult was once comparable with that of 'Minoan' Crete".
P. Weizsacker in Roscher Lex. Myth. i. 1598 £ fig.: but see P. Friedlander in Pauly—
Wissowa Real-Enc. vii. 744).
It may be objected that some of these transformation-scenes are palpably late figments
{e.g. the eagle spying upon Semele), that others were probably modelled on the myth of
Ganymedes {e.g. the eagle ravishing Aigina : so P. Friedlander loc. cit. vii. 739), and that
in his case earlier versions of the tale are extant not involving the bird-metamorphosis at
all {id. ib. vii. 737 ff.). But we do well to bear in mind that late writers often used early
materials (cp. Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 126 n. 5), and that the appearance of Zeus as
an eagle is supported by numerous parallels.
1 E. Curtius Ueber Wappengebrauch und IVappenstil im griechischen Allerthiim {Abh.
d. berl. Akad. 1874 Phil.-hist. Classe) Berlin 1874 p. 104 ff., Perrot—Chipiez Hist, de
/'Art vi. 856 f., M. Hoernes Urgeschichte der bildenden Kiuist in Enropa Wien 1898
pp. 489 f., 495, 501 f., 630, Furtwiingler Ant. Gem men iii. 55, Sir A. J. Evans in the
Journ. Hell. Stud. 1901 xxi. 152 ff.
2 A. Riegl Stilfragen Berlin 1893 pp. 33—40.
:! Good examples of ' split' quadrupeds and birds are given by F. Boas ' The Decora-
tive Art of the Indians of the North Pacific Coast' in the Bulletin of the American
Museum of Natural History 1897 ix. 144 ff. with figs.—a reference kindly supplied to me
by my friend Dr A. C. Haddon.
4 E. Loewy The Rendering of Nature in early Greek Art trans. J. Fothergill London
1907 p. 29 f. fig. 7.
5 Supra p. 13 n. 1. 6 Supra p. 167.
7 E. Piette ' Etudes d'ethnographie prehistorique iii Les galets colories du Mas-d'Azil'
in L? Anthropologic 1896 vii. 385—427 with figs. 1 —107 and Atlas of 25 col. pis., cp.
'Les galets peints du Mas-d'Azil' ib. 1903 xiv. 655—660 with figs. 1—4, H. Obermaier
Der Mensch aller Zeiten i (Der Mensch der Vorzeit) Berlin etc. 1912 p. 216 ff. col. pi. 13
and figs. 136—138.
s The first priests of Apollon Delphfnios at Pytho were Kp^res airb Kvwaaov Mivwtov
(h. Ap. 388 ff. : see further W. Aly Der kretische. Apollonkult Leipzig 1908 p. 35 ff.,
M. H. Swindler Cretan Elements in the Culls and Ritual of Apollo (Bryn Mawr College
were two, not one, is hardly to be explained as a device of heraldry1,
or the result of a desire for symmetry2, or an attempt to represent
both sides of a single bird3, or a juxtaposition of memory pictures4.
Rather it illustrates Usener's law of religious development5: the
eagles are Augenblicksgotter that have not yet coalesced into a
Sondergott.
But 1 am far from supposing that we have thus exhausted the
import of the Delphic omphalos. It will not do to blink the ques-
tion : Why was a particular mound of earth reduced to a com-
pact shape and safeguarded by a whole network of fillets ? When
W. H. Roscher shows that the term omphalos was used of earth's
central point6, he does indeed insist upon a truth which helps to
explain a variety of data, but he does not—to my thinking—really
get down to the root of things. For, after all, early man was (pace
Piette7) a poor mathematician and knew little of circles and centres.
No, we must assume that to him the word omphalos meant just
what it says—'the navel,' that is, the navel of the human bod}-, not
the hub of the universe. Now there is reason to believe that the
Delphic cult was once comparable with that of 'Minoan' Crete".
P. Weizsacker in Roscher Lex. Myth. i. 1598 £ fig.: but see P. Friedlander in Pauly—
Wissowa Real-Enc. vii. 744).
It may be objected that some of these transformation-scenes are palpably late figments
{e.g. the eagle spying upon Semele), that others were probably modelled on the myth of
Ganymedes {e.g. the eagle ravishing Aigina : so P. Friedlander loc. cit. vii. 739), and that
in his case earlier versions of the tale are extant not involving the bird-metamorphosis at
all {id. ib. vii. 737 ff.). But we do well to bear in mind that late writers often used early
materials (cp. Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 126 n. 5), and that the appearance of Zeus as
an eagle is supported by numerous parallels.
1 E. Curtius Ueber Wappengebrauch und IVappenstil im griechischen Allerthiim {Abh.
d. berl. Akad. 1874 Phil.-hist. Classe) Berlin 1874 p. 104 ff., Perrot—Chipiez Hist, de
/'Art vi. 856 f., M. Hoernes Urgeschichte der bildenden Kiuist in Enropa Wien 1898
pp. 489 f., 495, 501 f., 630, Furtwiingler Ant. Gem men iii. 55, Sir A. J. Evans in the
Journ. Hell. Stud. 1901 xxi. 152 ff.
2 A. Riegl Stilfragen Berlin 1893 pp. 33—40.
:! Good examples of ' split' quadrupeds and birds are given by F. Boas ' The Decora-
tive Art of the Indians of the North Pacific Coast' in the Bulletin of the American
Museum of Natural History 1897 ix. 144 ff. with figs.—a reference kindly supplied to me
by my friend Dr A. C. Haddon.
4 E. Loewy The Rendering of Nature in early Greek Art trans. J. Fothergill London
1907 p. 29 f. fig. 7.
5 Supra p. 13 n. 1. 6 Supra p. 167.
7 E. Piette ' Etudes d'ethnographie prehistorique iii Les galets colories du Mas-d'Azil'
in L? Anthropologic 1896 vii. 385—427 with figs. 1 —107 and Atlas of 25 col. pis., cp.
'Les galets peints du Mas-d'Azil' ib. 1903 xiv. 655—660 with figs. 1—4, H. Obermaier
Der Mensch aller Zeiten i (Der Mensch der Vorzeit) Berlin etc. 1912 p. 216 ff. col. pi. 13
and figs. 136—138.
s The first priests of Apollon Delphfnios at Pytho were Kp^res airb Kvwaaov Mivwtov
(h. Ap. 388 ff. : see further W. Aly Der kretische. Apollonkult Leipzig 1908 p. 35 ff.,
M. H. Swindler Cretan Elements in the Culls and Ritual of Apollo (Bryn Mawr College