Knowing that I am outside my own
field, and being limited by regional libraries, and having no argument but being very curious about the subject (and always wishing to check
auctoritas, not wishing to resemble the novice in Umberto Eco's great novel, The Name of the Rose), I have posted this question to the list CLASSICS-L, where some of the
members may be of
help. Some will just argue, but some will know the Lehmann-Hartleben article that needs to be assessed (it is itself not so recent).
My posted question: The
stone Pausanias saw at
Delphi was of marble (leukos lithos), and LSJ says a
baetyl was a meteorite (well, the
Emesa one surely was), but modifies the definition in the Supplement, acknowledging the 'beth El' derivation. It occurs to me (a) that the
identification of a
baetyl as a meteorite may not be intrinsic to the meaning of these cult objects, (b) that the
stone Pausanias saw could be a 'replacement', and (c) that since that world navel was anointed as baetylia were and draped with raw wool fillets and was regarded as divine, the
Omphalos is itself generically a
baetyl. Or, should we limit the word (meaning, did the ancients limit the word) to stones that contained, that were, the numen or the substance of a specific deity?
This is not strictly a numismatic question, but once a question has arisen, one wants to be careful to get to the bottom of it.
Pat LawrenceP.S. 06
XII 05. I got two answers plus a picture of the currently exhibited
omphalos which is
certified Roman in date. Both replies are useful, but the List seems at the moment concerned with general questions. These are from John Isles, whom I name because he also is in Moneta-L and, for all I know, in
Forvm.
The
stone described by Strabo 9.3.6 as "a kind of navel to be seen in
the temple; it is draped with fillets, and on it are the two likenesses
of the
birds in the myth" is apparently not the same as the man-made
marble object that stood on the esplanade outside the temple, where it
was seen by Pausanias (3) 10.16.3, and that is preserved to this day
(according to OCD, which here refers to G. Roux, Delphes (1976) 130-1,
cf. C.
Morgan, Athletes and Oracles (1990) 225). (Strabo's brief
description of the
omphalos is apparently the fullest available, so it
may not now be possible to say whether the
stone was man-made or
natural, marble, meteoritic, or what. I haven't been to
Delphi and
don't know what's now to be seen there.)
John Isles
I should have checked Pausanias before sending that. In
Peter Levy's
Penguin translation it's X 16 [2]: "What the Delphians call the Navel is
made of white
stone...." with a footnote: "... The
stone itself seems
possibly to have been recovered; it is a dismal object and there are
some suitably gloomy photographs of it in Fouilles de Delphes (La
Terrasse du temple, 1927, pp. 73-7). Several imitation Navel-stones
have also been found; originally the
stone was inside the temple, but
whether Pausanias's
stone is a substitute or the real cult object who
knows?..."
John Isles
I suppose the 'birds' were Apollo's ravens? The
Stone at Paphos for Aphrodite
had birds, too, her doves.