The Oracle at Delphi is referenced throughout Greek myths and
history. Supposedly she was rendered psychic by Apollo. Realistically, she
was off her skull on gas that seeped out of the fissures of the temple
in which she lived. Here is the scientific explanation for what caused
this woman to utter her confused prophecies.
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Even during the
Oracle at Delphi's time, it was widely known that the Oracle's visions
had a practical cause. Gas seeped out of the cracks in the cave where
she sat, causing her to talk nonsense. This nonsense would then be
interpreted by priests around her. Some of the predictions were
surprisingly accurate, according to legend. Croesus, the richest man of
his time, performed a kind of scientific test on oracles, when he had
messengers go out to all of them and ask what he would be doing on a
certain date. Delphi got the only correct answer — cooking a tortoise in
a pot. (Bold choice. I wouldn't think of the richest guy in the world
doing his own cooking.)
Modern archaeologists weren't convinced –
not about the tortoise and not about the gas. They inspected the
geology of the area for volcanic activity that might vent gas, and found
nothing, not even in the distant past. Later, however, they took
another look and found two fault lines converging just under the temple
of Delphi. Perhaps the mystic "vapors" that the Oracle breathed in had
seeped through these. In interdisciplinary team found that dissolving
limestone along those lines gave off gas and spiked the local water.
The
main components found in the water were ethane, methane and ethylene.
Most think that it's ethylene that is the key component. Ethylene was
one of the early painkillers used during medical procedures. It packed
more of a punch than nitrous oxide. It smells a bit like flowers, and
renders the sniffer euphoric, but extremely out-of-it. It's not
especially bad for people (although various compounds of ethylene can be
very harmful), and its main danger is that of suffocation. It displaces
air and makes people too high to notice. The combination of extreme
anesthesia, euphoria and lack of oxygen can make a person say all
kinds of things.
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Other scientists argue that ethylene wasn't the
chemical that made the Oracle talk, though. Methane, which decidedly
doesn't smell like flowers, can also cause hallucinations if inhaled in
high enough doses. The methane theory isn't without its faults. Methane
can kill people a lot faster than ethylene, particularly if it's being
burned, or otherwise decomposing, to produce carbon dioxide. A
by-product of the conversion is carbon monoxide, which attaches itself
to red blood cells more readily than oxygen does. Too much can smother a
person, but not before they often experiences confusion and
hallucinations. Carbon monoxide is a regular by-product of burning
fuels, though, and so there's no reason why the ancient Greeks, who
surely had mastered fire, would consider the gas and its effects so
special.
It would be considered irresponsible, even by the most
hardcore archaeologists, to dose a grad student with spiked water, or
shut them up in a cave, to either be poisoned or suffocated. So there's
no way we'll be sure whether the Oracle of Delphi was high or was
suffocating or was faking it. All we can be sure of is she craved
tortoise meat.
via JAMA, CDC, The Naked Scientists, and National Geographic
