Glenn Maffia
ANOTHER archaeological season is now in full flow, much as the inundation of the southeast section of the Temple is also.
It appears that the wonderfully articulate and knowledgeable team assembled this year have no doubt noticed that the aquatic theme is rather of a pressing concern.
For their focus of excavation has been correctly identified as the saturation of the stadium section, threatening the existence of the archaic temenos (enclosing wall of a sacred area) and the exciting exploration of an ancient sacred spring within the adyton (inner sanctum).
Red dots and pondering
It has transpired that the ancient gods have been deceitful in their guilt as the gushing flow of water into the stadium area has reduced to a mere trickle now the archaeologists have arrived, though the tell-tale signs remain in evidence.
An analysis of the water sample taken last year has proved to be inconclusive, as it shows the chemical constituents of fresh natural water with an admixture of the ‘good old human and animal’ sewage stained variety.
Therefore, no one seems to be any the wiser if this inundation is merely a broken water pipe or the release of a subterranean reservoir after the recent earthquakes in December 2015 and July 2017. It is perplexing.
Personally I believe that idiosyncrasy of this potentially destructive leakage allures more to the vagaries of nature rather than the prosaic broken pipe, which one would assume as being more constant in its attitude.
Nonetheless, the digging is continuing to ascertain some reason for the obvious conclusions we can witness with our own eyes, and soaking boots.
If you happen to be observant you may have noticed a series of painted red dots in and around the Harabe Café, these are the plotted geophysical lines of the path of that liquid seepage. Water does what water does, and finds the most natural gravitational way of escape.
As a complete aside, these excavations to find the cause of the flow have conveniently (for me) revealed yet more ancient architecture.
Beneath the road leading down to the Oracle Pansion some very interesting Byzantine fragments have come to light, along with the wall of a more recent house (probably built in the late 1700’s or early 1800’s).
The Byzantine article, which I consider as being a doorjamb, and surrounding wall are obviously not in situ, but this echoes a constant theme of mine, in which I maintain “why cut new stone when one has so much in abundance merely lying around”. Humans are lazy animals, opportunists one may conclude.
More to come forth
Now, if I may have the temerity to do so, let us move into the Adyton, the inner sanctum, of the Temple.
We remain within the uncertainties of nature’s whims, though we are seeing the desire to control this ever shifting anomaly within the all too human mind.
Here we can observe the excavation of the ‘original’ sacred spring where the priestess uttered forth her chemically induced profanities, made sweet by a politically motivated high priest.
Nature has a way of dealing with the certainty of human comprehension by ‘choosing to change’ its human predicted pattern…for water does what water does. As Richard Dawkins once wrote, in a different context, “It is like trying to herd cats”.
Though what we see today is the excavation of ‘a’ sacred spring, one of probably many, and revealing an excited human attempt to place order upon a purely natural, and changeable, phenomenon.
What it has, so far, revealed is precisely that excitability.
The excavation in 1925 conducted by the German archaeologist Hans Hörmann found a two stairwell descent into the sacred spring, as attested by the map in the Adyton.
What is more than apparent today is that, according to the archaeologist I spoke to, “they must have thrown the architecture back in”, as it is a complete mess of a site. Beautifully cut stone laid under our feet in a confusion of despair.
No doubt these eminent professionals shall find some oblique meaning within this morass of haphazard stone, though to me it has been entirely deflating…but we have another month or more of pertinent investigation.