Delphi

The Oracle of Delphi and the Gases Under the Temple Floor

For over a thousand years the Pythia of Delphi prophesied from a tripod in the temple of Apollo, in an altered state the ancients attributed to a sweet-smelling breath rising from the earth. Long dismissed as legend, the vapours returned to science in 2001, when geologists found the temple sits on intersecting faults seeping intoxicating hydrocarbon gases — a theory still argued over.