Reading Room · Fortune-Telling Methods · Method
What did people ask the oracle at Dodona?
Pilgrims at Dodona wrote questions on lead sheets for Zeus and Dione, most often about marriage, children, health, travel and work. Most questions were personal, and according to the Dodona tradition, the answers were usually simple yes or no replies, drawn by a procedure involving lots.
Facts checked on against 16 sources, 9 of them museum, university, archive, library, government or primary texts.
Key facts
Every line comes from a source listed at the bottom of the page. The small numbers point to it.
| Late 6th century BCE | Earliest lead oracular tablets at Dodona, inscribed with questions to Zeus and Dione.12 |
|---|---|
| 5th century BCE | Numbers of lead tablets grow rapidly, and the three priestesses are recorded as guarding the oracle and passing on its responses.34 |
| Around 400 BCE | The first stone architecture at the sanctuary appears, roughly when consultations on lead tablets begin to decline.3 |
| Late 4th century BCE | Lead from reused tablets may have been used in building works at the sanctuary.3 |
| 219 BCE | The Aetolians destroy the temple of Dodona, though accounts say the oracle went on.56 |
| 4th century CE | Pilgrims are still recorded consulting the oracle until the closure of pagan temples under Theodosius.78 |
What was asked
Questions at Dodona were mostly personal. Around 1500 of the roughly 4000 tablets give usable information, and one consultant in five asks whether they must marry.9
Among private queries, the tablets record consultations that the Dodona tradition taught were about health, marriage, family, children, residential shift and travel. Other questions concern money, debts, theft, professional plans, military service, and the purchase of slaves or manumission.91011
Less than two percent of the questions were political. Public questions came from cities or koina and mostly concerned domestic policy.911
How a question was put
Pilgrims wrote the question on one side of a lead sheet, then folded or rolled it so the question was enclosed. The god was addressed as Zeus Naios, Dodonaios or Pronaios, with Dione and other deities also named.111
Answers were usually monosyllabic and affirmative or negative. Athanasopoulou, writing for the National Archaeological Museum, judges that they were most likely delivered by a procedure involving cleromancy.14
Tradition held that the responses came from the rustling of the sacred oak, the sound of bronze cauldrons, the flight of doves, and the mediation of the Selloi and the Peleiades.112
What the tradition holds
How practitioners describe it, in their terms. Described, not endorsed.
Homer and the Iliad name Zeus as Lord of Dodona and describe its priests, the Selloi, in connection with the oak. Parke notes that Achilles' prayer in Iliad 16 is the first appearance of the oracle in a Greek author.71314
Herodotus, in Histories 2.57, names the three priestesses as Promeneia, Timarete and Nicandre, and recounts the founding by two black doves from Thebes in Egypt. Strabo held that three old women were appointed as prophets after men had first prophesied.4157
What the evidence shows
What historians, scientists and controlled tests have found.
Bowden argues that practicality and availability, rather than magical or religious associations, made lead the medium of choice for writing at Dodona. Bowden also suggests that the tablets were displayed after consultation and periodically cleared away and reused.3
Over four thousand lead tablets have been found scattered within the temenos, and they attest different dialects and handwritings, reflecting many visitors over the centuries. Most questions were written by individuals, though some came from communities or poleis.1016
Worked out from the evidence
Not stated outright by any one source. It is worked out from the sources cited.
- The surviving tablets show that the oracle at Dodona was used mainly for private, everyday questions rather than for state business, which sets it apart from Delphi in the accounts of later writers.942
- The decline in lead tablets after the early fourth century matches the timing of the first stone architecture at the site, so the change in practice is best read as a change in how consultations were recorded rather than an end to the oracle.3
Not yet confirmed
- How the answers were actually drawn from the yes-or-no questions remains debated among scholars.
- Why the use of lead tablets ended in the Roman period is a question the surviving evidence has not settled.
Sources
Museums, universities, archives and primary texts first. Every fact is paraphrased and nothing is copied; Wikipedia is never cited.
- namuseum.gr: Seeking answers from the Gods | National Archaeological Museum. Read on · Museum
- ancient-greece.org: Dodona History – Ancient-Greece.org. Read on · Reference
- cambridge.org: What Can the Lead Tell Us? (Chapter 3) - Visiting the Oracle at Dodona. Read on · Peer-reviewed journal
- worldhistory.org: Dodona - World History Encyclopedia. Read on · Reference
- penelope.uchicago.edu: Dodona • Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911. Read on · University
- gutenberg.org: Vacation Days in Greece, by Rufus B. Richardson: a Project Gutenberg eBook.. Read on · Primary text
- greekreporter.com: Ancient Greek Theater of Dodona Being Restored to Former Glory - GreekReporter.com. Read on · Reference
- historyhit.com: Dodona - History and Facts | History Hit. Read on · Reference
- cambridge.org: Consultation and Cognition (Part II) - Visiting the Oracle at Dodona. Read on · Peer-reviewed journal
- unesco.org: The lead tablets of the Dodona Oracle - Memory of the World. Read on · Government
- greeknewsagenda.gr: Ancient Voices on Lead: the Tablets of the Dodona Oracle and the Timeless Search for Answers to Human Concerns - Greek News Agenda. Read on · Reference
- ancient-greece.org: Dodona Archaeological Site – Ancient-Greece.org. Read on · Reference
- britannica.com: Dodona | Greece, Map, History, & Facts | Britannica. Read on · Reference
- Internet Archive: Herbert W. Parke] The Oracles Of Zeus. Dodona, OLYMPIA AMMON 1967. Read on · Primary text
- gutenberg.org: An Account of Egypt, by Herodotus. Read on · Primary text
- oraclevisit.blogs.bristol.ac.uk: Dodona: a Brief Overview – Visiting the Oracle: An Immersive Experience. Read on · University