Delphi Archaeological Museum

Stand still for a moment and listen. Outside these walls, the slopes of Mount Parnassus drop away toward a valley of olive trees, and the air smells of pine and warm stone. Inside, the light is softer and cooler. Footsteps echo on polished floors. Somewhere ahead, in a quiet room of its own, a young man made of bronze has been waiting for you for about two and a half thousand years.

This is the Delphi Archaeological Museum. It sits just below the ancient sanctuary of Apollo, the place the ancient Greeks believed was the centre of the world. For more than a thousand years, people climbed this mountain to ask the god questions. Kings asked about war. Cities asked where to found new colonies. Ordinary people asked about marriage, debts and health. And they brought gifts — statues, bronzes, gold and ivory — to thank the god and to show off.

Almost everything you will see here came from the ground above you. In the late nineteenth century, a modern village actually stood on top of the ruins. French archaeologists from the French School at Athens arranged for the village to be moved, and then they began what is still called the Great Excavation. The old village was rebuilt a short walk to the west, and that is the town of Delphi you drove through today. The museum first opened in the early twentieth century and has been expanded and redesigned several times since then.

As you move through the early rooms, look for the Sphinx of the Naxians. She is a creature with the body of a lion, the wings of a bird and the face of a smiling woman. The people of the island of Naxos dedicated her in the sixth century before Christ. Originally she sat on top of a very tall column near the temple, so worshippers looked up at her against the sky. Notice the careful rows of feathers on her wings. Notice that calm, slightly mysterious smile — the so-called archaic smile of early Greek sculpture.

Nearby stand two large marble young men, side by side. They are usually identified as Kleobis and Biton, two brothers from the city of Argos. According to a story told by the historian Herodotus, their mother was a priestess who needed to reach a festival, but the oxen were not ready. So the brothers pulled her cart themselves, over a long distance. She prayed that the gods would give her sons the best gift possible. That night, the brothers fell asleep in the temple and never woke up. To the ancient Greeks, a peaceful death at the height of glory was the greatest reward.

Here is the first surprise most visitors miss. Look up at the long sculpted frieze from the Treasury of the Siphnians. A treasury was a small, temple-shaped building where a city stored its offerings. The island of Siphnos was rich from its gold and silver mines, and this little building was covered in carvings. On one side, gods fight giants. Look closely for a lion attacking a giant — and for figures that seem to step out of the background. Traces of paint once made all of this bright with red, blue and other colours.

Another small building, the Treasury of the Athenians, gave the museum a set of carved square panels called metopes. They show the labours of Heracles and the adventures of Theseus, the hero of Athens. And there is a second surprise on stones from that treasury. Hymns to Apollo were carved into the wall, and above the words are small symbols. Those symbols are musical notes. They are among the oldest written music from the ancient world, and modern musicians have tried to perform them.

Now find the room with the gold and ivory. These objects came from pits beneath the Sacred Way, the path that led up to the temple. Archaeologists found them in the twentieth century, burnt and broken. It seems the treasures were damaged in a fire, and then buried with respect, because offerings to the god could not simply be thrown away. Among them are fragments of ivory heads and pieces of gold decoration. Nearby are the remains of a life-size bull made of silver sheets over a wooden core. Even damaged, these pieces show how much wealth flowed up this mountain.

In another room you will see the omphalos, a carved stone shaped like a rounded cone. Omphalos means navel in Greek. Legend has it that Zeus released two eagles from opposite ends of the earth. Where they met — here at Delphi — was the centre of the world. The stone in the museum is covered in a carved net pattern. It is generally considered a later version of the sacred object, not the original from the temple itself.

Close to it, three young women dance around the top of a tall column decorated with acanthus leaves. Acanthus is a spiky Mediterranean plant that Greek artists loved to carve. The dancers lift their arms, and their thin dresses cling to their bodies. Scholars still discuss what this column supported. Some believe it held a large tripod, the three-legged bronze stand linked with the oracle. Walk slowly around it if you can, because the figures change with every angle.

And now, the bronze young man. The Charioteer of Delphi stands in his own room, and for good reason. He was part of a larger group that once included a chariot and horses, made to celebrate a victory in the Pythian Games, the athletic and music festival held here in honour of Apollo. The statue was cast in the fifth century before Christ. He was found in pieces in 1896. Many of the bronzes from that time were later melted down for their metal, so a large bronze like this one is extremely rare.

Walk close and look at his face. His eyes are inlaid with glass and stone, so they still seem to look back at you. Look for the fine metal eyelashes. Look at his feet — the toes and veins are very precise. His long robe falls in straight, deep folds, like the fluting of a column. He is not celebrating wildly. He is calm, almost serious, holding the reins in his right hand. Ancient artists believed that self-control was part of true victory.

Before you leave, look for the marble statue of Antinous, a young man from the Roman period. He was the beloved companion of the emperor Hadrian, and after his early death he was honoured in many places across the empire. His presence here shows that Delphi still mattered long after classical Greece. The sanctuary only faded in late antiquity, when Christianity became the official religion of the empire and the old oracles fell silent.

When you step outside again, pause and look up the hillside. Above the trees, the high grey cliffs of the Phaedriades rise over the sanctuary. The temple, the treasuries and the stadium are all still up there, open to the sky. Everything you have just seen once stood on that slope, in the sun and wind. Take a slow breath of mountain air. You are standing where travellers have arrived with questions for thousands of years... and you leave, perhaps, with a few new ones of your own.