Dodona

Dodona was the oldest oracle sanctuary in Greece, predating even Delphi in the Greek imagination. Worship here may extend to the Bronze Age, with the historical sanctuary flourishing from the eighth century BCE through the fourth century CE. King Pyrrhus of Epirus transformed it into a major festival site in the third century BCE. The oracle fell silent when Christianity became Rome's state religion.

Two origin stories survive, both recorded by Herodotus. The Greek version tells of two black doves that flew from Thebes in Egypt. One settled in Libya, where it established the oracle of Zeus Ammon. The other landed in an oak tree at Dodona and spoke with a human voice, declaring that a prophetic sanctuary to Zeus should be established there.

The Egyptian priests offered a different account. Two priestesses had been taken from Thebes by Phoenician pirates. One was sold to Libya, one to Greece. Each continued her oracular work in the new land. The Greek word peleiades means both doves and the name given to the priestesses at Dodona. Perhaps, Herodotus suggests, the story of speaking doves arose from Greeks hearing the foreign speech of Egyptian priestesses and likening it to bird sounds.

Both stories point toward the same intuition: Dodona's oracle was ancient, connected to something older than the Greeks themselves, rooted in the deep past of Mediterranean religion. The sacred oak was already there, already venerated, when the Greeks arrived.