New finds on Greek island of Delos
Posted On: Jul 8th, 2017 at 10:49
Greece
Delos is a very special place, for it is there the twin gods Artemis and Apollo were born from their mother, Leto. I have carried out a considerable amount of research into the cult of Leto, mostly related to the city of Xanthos and its nearby religious sanctuary, Letoon (named after Leto), both based in Turkey. It was at Letoon where Leto turned the shepherds into frogs, when they stirred the waters of the spring there and made the water undrinkable for her thirsty twin children, since the shepherds had taken sides with Hera, the wife of Zeus. I have concluded that the cult of Leto most likely originated with the Lycian culture and was, therefore, not a Greek import. This implies that at least some of the Greek gods may not have been Greek at all.
Here is a sentence from the article:
“”The finds confirm that Delos was an important trading base and an important maritime trade route through the ages, linking the east and west Mediterranean,” a ministry announcement said.”
I wonder who these people are? What stupidity do we have in charge of our antiquities, or do journalists just make these lines up? Although the sentence says the finds ‘confirm’, it’s been known ever since Delos was in use as a cult centre more than 3,000 years ago – the knowledge of its importance and its use has not ever once been UNknown – that continuity has remained since its heyday. I honestly wonder why they come out with such idiotic sentences. I guess they have nothing else to say. I can imagine the internal meeting. It goes something like this:
“The press want us to say something about the new finds.”
“We have just found some more artefacts. The same kind of artefacts we’ve been finding for decades. It changes nothing.”
“Well, we need to say something…”
“Then tell them, “The finds confirm that Delos was an important trading base and an important maritime trade route through the ages, linking the east and west Mediterranean.””
“That sounds good!”
We don’t need this article to confirm that Delos was one of the most important locations in the ancient Greek world, both for trade routes and religion. Not only was the cult of Apollo and Artemis prominent here, but it was also home to one of the oracles. Of the three major oracles of the ancient world, Delos was second only to that of Delphi, but many have argued that Delos was actually the primary centre of the oracle. That alone tells us everything we need to know about the importance of Delos – people were flowing in and out of this island in their tens of thousands every year, no different to tourists visiting London today. And when you have that many tourists flocking to an island, you need a large amount of food to feed them and a large amount of trade goods to sell to them.
