His prayer went up and Phoebus Apollo heard him.
Down he strode from Olympus's peaks, storming at heart
with his bow and hooded quiver slung across his shoulders.
The arrows clanged at his back as the god quaked with rage,
the god himself on the march and down he came like night.
Over against the ships he dropped to a knee, let fly a shaft
and a terrifying clash rang out from the great silver bow.
First he went for the mules and circling dogs but then,
launching a piercing shaft at the men themselves,
he cut them down in droves—
and the corpse-fires burned on, night and day, no end in sight.
—Iliad, Book 1, Lines 50 - 60, Robert Fagles translation.
apollo sending plague in iliad book 1 has got to be one of my favorite moments in the whole poem
If you look carefully, you should be able to see the brick wall. 🪻
Perhaps in the grand scheme of things, the brick wall of a Silo doesn’t seem very significant; and it would be silly to make into something that it’s not. But what makes it remarkable is how unremarkable it is, how ordinary it is… That this structure was a part of the daily life of ordinary people that lived approximately 2.200 years ago.
As they say, one man’s trash is an archaeologist’s treasure. All this is a very eloquent way to say that, you can find out so much about people through their trash! We archaeologists mainly sort through ancient dead people’s waste;;
There were a lot of little pieces found inside this particular Silo’s fill that are unremarkable on their own, but helped paint a much bigger picture about these people long gone: what did they eat? What materials did they use? What kind of crops did they grow? And many more. While these questions seem insignificant, they help us understand who these people were, how they lived, what their daily lives were like…
For example in this specific Silo’s case, the fill was mostly made up of hardened clay and mud-brick. It was indeed used as a regular silo at first, but quickly became a glorified trash can. (Very common!)
We found many animal bones, a lot of jaws and teeth of sheep, and parts of their spines, legs, skulls, etc. Some charcoal here and there, lots of pottery, and calcified organic material.
What do these finds tell us, then?
These people made their structures mainly out of mud brick. Animal bones say a lot about their diet, pottery will tell you a lot about their technology (were their kilns able to get to very high temperatures, are they hand made or wheel thrown? Are they decorated/painted,) and also can say a lot about their trade, wealth and potential tools they might have used. Further analysis can show the types of grain and seeds in the floor of the silo, and the calcified plant remains are usually a good way to know if the houses of the settlement had a roof or not! Because, the roof was usually made out of fiber and similar organic material.
Of course, this is a very simplified explanation that doesn’t do it justice. I can provide more specific explanations if there are questions, but I wanted to take a moment to share some small clips from my work. Stay tuned for more potential clips!
When seekers arrived at the Apollonian Delphi, they paid a fee to the priesthood before purifying themselves at the Castalian spring, which emerged from the nearby rock face. They then continued on their journey along the “sacred way, which led up to the hill. As they followed the zigzagging path, their eyes were drawn to the shrines, statues, and offerings that lined the way up to the oracle. Dignitaries of cities presented most of these offerings as a thank you for advice obtained from the sibyl, which proved to be fruitful. Upon reaching the Temple of Apollo, pilgrims would make sacrificial offerings of sheep or goats, close to the omphalos stone. The priests of Apollo who were present would then perform augury; divination on the entrails of the offered animals to see if there were any omen present. One by one, the travellers were allowed to enter the oracular temple to ask the sibyl their questions. As they entered the temple, they would have seen sayings inscribed on the columns, including “Know thyself” and “Nothing in excess,” which survived as commonly used maxims to this day.
—Lifting the Veil: A Witches' Guide to Trance-Prophesy, Drawing Down the Moon and Ecstatic Ritual by Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone
amandla
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