Omphalos

An omphalos is a religious stone artefact. In Ancient Greek, the word ὀμφᾰλός (omphalós) means "navel". Among the Ancient Greeks, it was a widespread belief that Delphi was the center of the world. According to the myths regarding the founding of the Delphic Oracle, Zeus, in his attempt to locate the center of the Earth, launched two eagles from the two ends of the world, and the eagles, starting simultaneously and flying at equal speed, crossed their paths above the area of Delphi, and so was the place where Zeus placed the stone.[1]

For other uses, see Omphalos (disambiguation).

Omphalos is also the name of the stone given to Cronus. In the ancient world of the Mediterranean, it was a powerful religious symbol.[2]

Omphalos Syndrome refers to the belief that a place of geopolitical power and currency is the most important place in the world.[3][4]

Delphi
Main article: Omphalos of Delphi
The Omphalos of Delphi

Most accounts locate the Delphi omphalos in the adyton (sacred part of the temple) near the Pythia (oracle). The stone sculpture itself, which may be a copy, has a carving of a knotted net covering its surface and a hollow center, widening towards the base. The omphalos represents the stone which Rhea wrapped in swaddling clothes, pretending it was Zeus, in order to deceive Cronus. (Cronus was the father who swallowed his children so as to prevent them from usurping him as he had deposed his own father, Uranus.)

Omphalos stones were believed to allow direct communication with the gods. Holland (1933) suggested that the stone was hollow to allow intoxicating vapours breathed by the Oracle to channel through it. Erwin Rohde wrote that the Python at Delphi was an earth spirit, who was conquered by Apollo and buried under the Omphalos. However, understanding of the use of the omphalos is uncertain due to destruction of the site by Theodosius I and Arcadius in the 4th century CE.

Jerusalem

Judaism

The Foundation Stone at the peak of the Temple Mount is considered in traditional Jewish sources to be the place from which the creation of the world began, with several further major biblical events connected to it. Jewish tradition holds that God revealed Himself to His people through the Ark of the Covenant in the Temple in Jerusalem, which rested on the Foundation Stone marking the centre of the world.[5]

Christianity
Omphalos in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem.
Foundation Stone of the Jewish Temple, found in the Dome of the Rock mosque on the Temple Mount, Jerusalem.

The omphalos at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, represents, in medieval Christian tradition, the navel of the world (the spiritual and cosmological centre of the world).[6] The omphalos stone has a collection box chained next to it (see picture).

Islam

The Dome of the Rock on the Aqsa Masjid/Haram ash-Sharif might have served the same purpose in Islam.

Art

Omphalos is a public art sculpture by Dimitri Hadzi formerly located in the Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts under the Arts on the Line program.[7] As of 2014, the sculpture has been deinstalled; it will be relocated to Rockport, Massachusetts.[8]

Omfalos is a concrete and rock sculpture by the conceptual artist Lars Vilks, previously standing in the Kullaberg natural reserve, Skåne County, Sweden.[9] As of 2001, the sculpture belongs to the collections of Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden.[10]

Literature
Omphalos of Chiang Rai, Thailand.

In literature, the word omphalos has held various meanings but usually refers to the stone at Delphi. Authors who have used the term include: Homer,[11][12] Pausanias, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Philip K. Dick,[13] Jacques Derrida, Ted Chiang, Sandy Hingston and Seamus Heaney. For example, Joyce uses the term in the novel, Ulysses:

"Billy Pitt had them built," Buck Mulligan said, "when the French were on the sea but our's is the omphalos." [Chapter 1]

One of her sisterhood lugged me squealing into life. Creation from nothing. What has she in the bag? A misbirth with a trailing navelcord, hushed in ruddy wool. The cords of all link back, strandentwining cable of all flesh. That is why mystic monks. Will you be as gods? Gaze in your omphalos. [Chapter 3]

[...] to set up there a national fertilising farm to be named Omphalos with an obelisk hewn and erected after the fashion of Egypt and to offer his dutiful yeoman services for the fecundation of any female of what grade of life soever who should there direct to him with the desire of fulfilling the functions of her natural. [Chapter 14]

In Ted Chiang's short story "Omphalos" (2019), the protagonist is forced to question her belief about where the center of the world is located.

In “The Toome Road”, a Seamus Heaney poem from the anthology, “Field Work”, Heaney writes about an encounter with a convoy of armoured cars in Northern Ireland, “… O charioteers, above your dormant guns, It stands here still, stands vibrant as you pass, The invisible, untoppable omphalos.”

See also

Sources
  • Burkert, Walter (1985). Greek Religion.
  • Dehoqu (1925). Dishi.
  • Farnell, Lewis R. (1896). The Cults of the Greek States.
  • Goodrich, Norma L. (1990). Priestesses. F. Watts. ISBN 9780531151136.
  • Guthrie, W.K.C. (1955). The Greeks and their Gods. Beacon Press. ISBN 9780807057933.
  • Hall, Manly P. (1928). "The Secret Teachings of All Ages: Greek Oracles". Sacred texts.
  • Harrison, Jane Ellen (1912). "Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion". p. 396.
  • Holland, Leicester B. (1933). "The Mantic Mechanism at Delphi". American Journal of Archaeology. 37 (14): 204–214. doi:10.2307/498438. JSTOR 498438. S2CID 191389544.
  • "Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo". The Medieval and Classical Literature Library.
  • Oswald, Pierre Jean & Kitsikis, Dimitri (1977). Omphalos. Paris.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Rohde, Erwin (1925). Psyche.
  • Shafer, Joseph R. (2011). Literary Identity in the Omphalos Periplus.
  • Trubshaw, Bob (February 1993). "The Black Stone - the Omphalos of the Goddess". Mercian Mysteries. Vol. 14.

References
  1. Voegelin E. (2000). Order and History, Volume 2. University of Missouri Press. p. 31. ISBN 9780826263933.
  2. Ciholas P. (2003). The omphalos and the cross. Mercer University Press. p. 6. ISBN 9780865547834.
  3. Murphy C. (2007). Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 44. ISBN 9780618742226.
  4. Winther, Rasmus Grønfeldt (2014) World Navels. Cartouche 89: 15-21 http://philpapers.org/archive/WINWN.pdf
  5. Tanhuma Buber, Kedoshim paragraph 10.
  6. Ezekial 38,12, a homily on the phrase, the nations...that dwell in the middle of the earth.
  7. "Public art". Cambridge, Ma website. Archived from the original on 29 July 2012. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
  8. Edgers, Geoff (11 November 2013). "Hadzi sculpture in Harvard Square to get fixed, then moved". Boston Globe. Retrieved 28 December 2013.
  9. Edwards, Catherine (2 December 2019). "#AdventCalendar: The micronation in a southern Swedish national park". The Local Sweden. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  10. "Den 1:a på Moderna: Lars Vilks". Moderna Museet i Stockholm (in Swedish). Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  11. "Homer, Odyssey, Book 1, line 50". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 4 March 2017.
  12. "Homer, Odyssey, Book 1, line 50 ("navel")". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 4 March 2017.
  13. Peake, Anthony (2013). A Life of Philip K. Dick The Man Who Remembered the Future. Arcturus Publishing.
  • Media related to Omphalos at Wikimedia Commons
  • The dictionary definition of omphalos at Wiktionary
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