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The nature of the Black Stone has been much debated. It has been described variously as basalt stone, an agate, a piece of natural glass or—most popularly—a stony meteorite.
Some such stones were meteorites (or at least thought to be) and dedicated to a god or revered as a symbol of the god itself. This piece from Ephesus seemed to bear “a possible parallel to the baitylos of Kybele, set in silver and decked with a necklace.”
One meteorite holds the place of honour at Apollo [s Temple at Delphi, where the ancient Greeks believed Cronos (the god Saturn being the Roman variant) threw the rock from above after his dethronement by his son Zeus.
Did a meteorite inspire the construction of the pyramids? Did the Delphic Oracle stand upon the site of a meteorite? We explore the stories that ancient cultures attached to these fallen space rocks, such as the Benben stone meteorite, to which they attributed divine blessings and mystical powers.
A baetyl (/ ˈbiːtɪl /; also betyl), literally "house of god" is a sacred stone (sometimes believed to be a meteorite) that was venerated and thought to house a god or deity. [1] The most famous example is the Omphalos stored in the Temple of Apollo at the Greek town of Delphi. [2]
This is the meteorite of the Kaaba at Mecca.3 The worship of this stone by Arabian tribes is first spoken of by Greek writers of early times. So firmly had its worship become established when the Arabs became con-verts to Mohamniedanism, and Mohammed took Mecca, and de-stroyed the 360 idols within the temple, that the great prophet dared
That earliest temple contained a sacred stone, probably a meteorite, that had "fallen from Jupiter." The shrine was destroyed and rebuilt several times over the next few hundred years.
At the ancient Greek temple of Delphi, a bullet-shaped meteorite called the Omphalos was revered. It was believed to mark the centre of the universe and was referred to as the "navel", because that hole in our stomach was seen as being the centre of the human body.
In 1870 a meteorite fell at Nidigullam, and the Hindoos at once carried it to their temple and worshipped it. The same has been repeated in India on the occasion of several other stonefalls in the present century.
If only all meteorites could be as rich in tradition as the Ogi meteorite. When this shower of four stones fell on the Japanese island of Kyushu, the 14kg of meteorites were carefully collected and preserved in a family temple, protected by priests for over 200 years.
In ancient Egypt, iron harvested from meteorites was used to create ritual objects associated with royalty and power. An iron dagger from the tomb of King Tutankhamun is one of the oldest Egyptian objects verified to be of meteoritic origin.
Because they seem to fall from the sun or heaven, there are more than a few ancient accounts of meteorites becoming objects of worship. Many of these meteorites have a black “fusion” outer crust, caused by high temperatures when the rock passes through the earth’s atmosphere.
The image in the temple of Artemis/Diana was created by a craftsman named Canetius, but beyond that little is known about it. When it was first brought to the temple is unknown, but Pliny the Elder records that Mucianus claimed it had survived seven restorations of the temple.
The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was renowned as one of the largest and most magnificent in antiquity, and many people considered it the most impressive of the Wonders. It stood on the shores of a deep gulf formed by flooding of a glacial-age valley as sea level rose following the last Ice Age.
The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus made it onto the established list of Seven Wonders because of its size and beauty; the location right next to the sea (which since antiquity has retracted several kilometres) must also have contributed to the mesmerising effect of the building.
In gratitude, the Romans built a special temple on the Palatine hill where the meteorite was worshipped for at least 500 years. However, the stone eventually fell into oblivion. In A.D. 1730 it was apparently excavated from its chapel, only to be discarded for lack of recognition.
The first shrine to the goddess Artemis was probably built around 800 BC and may have contained a sacred stone—possibly a meteorite (cf. Acts 19:35). In his Natural History 36.21, Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79) writes about the construction of the temple which stood in Paul’s day.
A black meteorite, representing the goddess, was brought to Rome from Asia Minor in 204 BCE. Miraculously, Hannibal and his army left shortly afterwards to defend Carthage against the invading Romans; a temple honoring Cybele would be built on Palatine Hill in 191 BCE.
Meteorites may have even played a more direct role in state religion. For example, the “Benben” stone worshipped in the sun temple of the god Ra at Heliopolis is thought to have possibly been a meteorite. The word “benben” is derived from the verb “weben”, meaning “to shine”.
Lonar Lake is in an impact crater created by a meteorite impact during the Pleistocene Epoch. [5][6] It is one of only four known hyper-velocity impact craters in basaltic rock anywhere on Earth. The other three basaltic impact structures are in southern Brazil. [7] .
Another study published this year suggests that the meteor shower is depicted on a stone pillar at Göbekli Tepe, a 12,000-year-old temple complex in Upper Mesopotamia, present-day Turkey.
Nov. 8, 2024, 10:02 a.m. ET. More than a decade ago, archaeologists began to excavate one of the world’s oldest Christian churches in the middle of a forbidding Egyptian desert. Delayed by war ...