Navel Stone

Museum of Delphi- Delphi

This is called the navel stone of Delphi or the "Omphalos" in Greek. According to myth, it is said that the titan Cronos became aware of a prophecy that said he would get overthrown by his own children. To avoid this, he devoured his children after they were born. His wife, Rhea, got tired of him devouring their children so she came up with a plan to save their sixth child, Zeus. Instead of handing over Zeus to Cronos to be devoured like she did all the other children, she gave him a stone wrapped in a blanket. Cronos fell for it and swallowed the stone, but eventually spit it out along with all his other children who, led by Zeus, overthrew him thus fulfilling the prophecy. When he spit the stone out, it landed landed in a spot that marks the center of the world. I love knowing the backstories to the artifacts that I see, because it brings them to life. Just looking at this stone it mat not seem impressive, but knowing its role in mythology makes it very interesting. It also brings out the kid in me that still wants to believe all these myths are true. Even if the myths aren't 100% true it is fun to see the intertwining of history and mythology and how they can complement and contradict each other.