Le sanctuaire de Delphes et ses relations extérieures au viie siècle av J.-C. : le témoignage des offrandes

Abstract

The appearance of objects from regions distant from Delphi, from the eastern and western parts of the Mediterranean, is a phenomenon characteristic of the Delphic offerings in the last third of the VIIIth century and throughout the VIIth century. In the absence of contemporary literary or epigraphic sources, one can ponder the reasons why such objects reached the shrine: who was attracted to Delphi at that remote date? Visitors from the Greek cities in possession of exotic curios, or foreigners attracted by the fame of the shrine? In the impossibility to deduce from the origin of an object the origin of its donor, it is by getting interested in the categories of documents and the votive assemblage that we shall be able to sketch out the types of visitors to Apollo’s shrine. We shall in particular be able to ponder the role of the oracle at that time and the original development of Delphi during the early archaic period.

Keywords

• Delphi
• offerings
• early archaic period
• Orient
• circulations
• colonization