@@diogenessilviocemartins9019 True, we have seen their reactions to such attempts on a couple myths, best possible outcome was getting a lightning bolt in the face.
That was the Annunaki 200,000 years ago, right before they came here and genetically engineered chimps to create humans to mine gold in Africa, so that they could use the gold dust to enforce their atmosphere and reverse the climate change they caused on their planet thousands of years before. (This is really a thing some people believe, look up Zecheria Sitchin)
what the hell man, my school took a field trip to a meat processing plant while you guys were climbing mountains? is this some rick riordan reference or are you being serious?
I actually grew up near Mt. Olympus (on the sea-facing Pieria side). I would always face the mountain in the mornings when walking to school or going to catch the bus. I often wondered if the ancients ever climbed it. Now I finally know! Thanks! :)
Imagine an ancient Greek priest standing in front of some shrine, saying: "Gods live in Mount Olympus!", and some dude in the crowd goes: "No, they don't! I was hiking there with my freinds last weekend, and we didn't see any gods..."
This casts more light on the ancient Greeks realising that they are just as conflicted as modern people about the particulars of their beliefs. I suppose the exact idiosyncrasies really come down to the individual. I wonder if some goods were thought more tangible than others, maybe depending on their station within the pantheon.
Theologies have always existed and evolved, many schools competing. Secular people want to believe religions never evolve or are backward, but religion has always evolved as any other idea, from natural animism to some form of post-natural idealism. In a sense, human rights are also platonic supernatural beliefs (ideals of equality and fairness, unable to be described by science).
The Greeks thought that the Gods lived in a parallel reality essentially, as in they could not see the Gods, but they knew they were still there. They knew that when they summitted the mountain they wouldn’t see their Gods.
Pagan thought most of the times is utterly conflicted with the more literal and fanatical belief of Abrahamic faith. Paganism has myths, often contradicting one another, and as many interpretations as priests AND believers themselves. Hardly ever you find prescription and forced beliefs, and spirits or precepts from other faiths may be accepted and syncretised within the belief system. It's an inclusive system, not exclusive. It suggests and adds, contrary to dogma and substraction. Sounds unfamiliar huh?
Even early Christianity was like this. That whole mindset went down the drain with the increasing temporal and spiritual power of the Roman Church and the papacy, the result of Constantine's standardisation.
On average, I probably leave less than one RU-vid comment a year so maybe that'll help this land harder: I love your channel, I love this question, and I love the "Short Answer... Yes, repeatedly"
You're the best video essayist. You pose a question and you answer it within the first 3 seconds so I don't need to listen to you for an hour, but you still provide context in case I want it anyway.
I’ve had this question many times when I’ve studied Ancient Greece. I mean, it’s so easy to disprove that gods physically were present. I often wondered what the general belief was. Thank you for the short answer.
Those who didn't believe in the gods definitely sought to provide proof that they didn't exist. IIRC one of things they pointed to was a tomb in Crete that was inscribed with the name Zeus. The argument was that Zeus was a real man that was later elevated to the status of god by other men, and somewhere along the line the mortal origins were forgotten.
@@semiramisbonaparte1627 For the ancient mind, there is no distinction. The unseen is just another, higher level of reality which happens to overlap the seen.
@@semiramisbonaparte1627 There's a similar belief in Judaism with Jerusalem and Mount Zion, how there is a second "heavenly" Jerusalem that is a copy of the city on earth, and that Jerusalem represents more of a conceptual ideal of the city than a physical place. Interesting stuff
@@boejudden9011 if you look on wikipedia "According to Robert S.P. Beekes the word is of pre-Greek origin and he speculates that it originally meant "mountain".[12][14] It's worth noting that the word is also probably cognate with the Mycenean Greek word 𐀄𐀬𐀠𐀊𐀍 (u-ru-pi-ja-jo) which is, most likely, a term used to describe people, or possibly an ethnic group.[15]" So the dude was kinda right and you were wrong
The existence of temples to the Gods on the mountain is enough to convince me that the ancient Greeks did understand it to be the home of the Gods -- for the simple reason that the mountain is where they went to ritually encounter those gods. They of course did not think like we do as post-enlightenment materialists who would deny the existence of the gods in that place if toga-clad deities couldn't plainly be seen walking around up there in the way that a man could be seen. Rather, it is clear to most people even now that when we reach the peak of a mountain, there is something special about that place. It is not like the normal places of our everyday lives, and there is no real practical reason to go to the top of a mountain. It is a spiritual experience even for the most modern person -- the ascent to something higher.
Had the same question a few months back and could only find modern climbs so just disappointingly assumed altitude sickness above 2,500m didn't lend to it happening. Thanks for the answer!
@@Fabianwew Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I used to live at 2800m elevation (small gambling town in the Rockies) and the only people that ever had a problem with air were certain old people from low-lying places like New Orleans. But 2500m is the answer that google gives.
An audiobook version of "Naked Statues" is coming out around the end of September. Still don't know, however, if they're going to ask me to narrate it...
A childhood question of mine. I knew the answer had to be yes. I was a dreadful tresspasser as a child so I know even if there were sacred laws people would get up there somehow. But this added detail is just what tween me ordered! Thx
Maybe the ancient Greeks believed that it was a long distance from heaven to Earth, but the distance from heaven to the peak of a tall mountain was drastically shorter, and the gods lived in an area of heaven which was directly over Mount Olympus and therefore was sort of connected to it. Ancient Mesopotamians believed something very similar to this, which is why they built ziggurats.
Considering that the Indo-European pantheon predates settled society, the myth that the gods live way up in a mountain was probably applied to whichever nearby mountain was tallest. When tribes settled in Greece, it just happened to become fixed in one location.
Yeah I saw a video a while ago about how all Indo-European religions contain elements of the beliefs of hunters from the neolithic who traveled the plains of Eastern Europe and Russia. Interesting stuff :)
@@Meeminator if you’ve been there you know you can easily climb up it without any training, it’s an oversized hill since the trail is almost completely straight leading to the summit
This is the exact question I asked my lecturer back in university. If the Ancient Greeks really thought their gods lived on Mt Olympus, wouldn't that belief be dealt with pretty smartly just by climbing up and taking a peek? They would probably have to retcon their religion by saying that the gods were invisible or that they didn't "really" live on the mountain etc. My lecturer did not know the answer.
I mean they(Christians/Catholics) think their gods in the clouds and let me tell you I was in a plane just the other day ain’t nothing but clouds up there
Honestly the question demonstrates a very primitive view of theology. It’s like saying “have Christians ever flown an airplane?” They have and it didn’t surprise anyone to find that Jesus was actually living in the clouds with all the angels because only a child would actually think that. The Greeks knew that the gods didn’t actually live on the physical mountain of Olympus. Olympus is both a physical mountain and a mythological form, an axis mundi or the point on which the universe revolves. So by saying the gods lived on Mt. Olympus they were saying the gods lived at the center of the universe.
Hellenic Paganism has a really good conceptualization of divinity. What they actually considered the actions of the divine to be was questionable, no doubt about that, but the Greeks, and even moreso the Romans, had pretty convincing ideas of what a God is.
A really interesting question rarely which is rarely asked! Since I study mountains and ancient Greeks for some months now, I can quite safely tell that there is no tangible evidence or literary refefernce that proves that even a single person made it to the top (Mitikas)
Plutarch (2nd century) and St Augustine (4th-5th century) report on annual pilgrimages up the mountain. Ceramic plates have been found dotted around the various plateaus and passes, and burned sacrifices have been found at the Agios Antonios peak (one of the five peaks of the Olympos massif).
@@kyrrekausrud5960 Yes Indeed, but my remark was about the peak Mitikas specifically, not the highest zone of the mountain in general.. Especially the discovery of the sanctuary on St. Antonios peak had been a quite unexpected and interesting find. I have written an essay about this one recently. St Antonios peak is only about 100 meters lower than Mitikas, but the feeling you get from standing there is quite different (I have been to the mountain quite a few times). The ground is quite soily there, whereas in Mitikas, Paramitikas, Scholio and Stefani the ground is really rocky and inclined. The routes to get to Mitikas are quite adverse and can potentially be dangerous even by the standards of our times. St Antonios feels like it is near Mitikas and far at the same. I suggest that the decision to make a sanctuary there had to do mainly with practical reasons and accessibility. Furthermore the location seems to hit a sweet spot between proximity and keeping a respectful distance from the Panteon.
You become whatever you worship, and you worship whatever you’ve become. If people were degenerate, they projected their degeneracy onto the gods as well.
There were actually quite a few mountains named Olympus in the Greek world (scholars to speculate that "Olympus" meant something like "mountain" in a pre-Greek language). In any case, the Greeks definitely climbed the Mount Olympus in Cyprus, since there was a temple of Aphrodite near the top.
After Tuesday's video, I will stop featuring material from the book in my videos. Believe it or not, in all of the videos I've made over the last three years, I've only used about 15% of the information that appears in "Naked Statues." If you buy the book, almost everything will be new - and none of it, starting next week, will ever be a spoiler!
"Our terrifying Gods command thunder and the ocean, they created us, and could destroy us with a single swipe." "Where do they live?" "Oh, over on that hill over there"
Completely unfounded and not researched theory but maybe they had the temple near the summit and took the sacrifices to the peak for the gods, when they leave natural elements knock them all off the peak and every time they return either everything is gone or some wasn’t and they assume the gods would not accept part of it for some petty deity reason.
That’s a shame, isn’t it? The world should be an enchanting place, but our modern conception has reduced it to nothing more than a complex machine. I, for one, reject materialism.
First guy up there must have pondered on Socrates’ fate and made up a fine story of gods and banquets all over the place. “I’m still stuffed mate, so much food they made me eat”
@@shreyvaghela3963 You forget the Greek settlers of Anatolia. We do not know how the non Greeks called those mountains. Plus, there is Olympus (mountainous again) of Carpathos, Cyprus and Lesbus. Also, those "Olympuses" of Asia Minor are very close to the seashore in regions where Greek settlers lived. Moreover, the Hittite and Hurrian heartlands were far in the East. Thus, supposed influence (as in other cases) is on the level of speculation and almost unfounded.
I’d love to know more about the temple he mentions on the mountain. Does anybody have any article on it? I tried searching online but i only get results about Zeus’s temple in Olympia :/
Holy heck mind blown. I’ve always thought of Greek mythology as being this complete ancient Greek society constant and it sounds exactly like modern religion! Some Greeks observed it, others didn’t believe in it. Good job on the video.
If I had lived there in the time, I would have believed that the gods did not exist in the material world on Gaia's creation unless they had a reason to, like punish humanity, hide from other gods to have affairs or to toil with mortal affairs as they see fit. Olympus would be outside the material world, because don't forget that the world is their relative by blood, as well as Tartarus and the darkness itself, they would not consider those areas their "domain" because quite frankly they are primordial incarnates that have existed for longer than time and are infinitely more powerful than them. The Gods of Olympus exist by the grace of Gaia and the Abyss alone. But that's just my interpretation, that's what's cool about mythology, its not religion so I'm not offending anyone :)
@Bronski Turboski I always liked the fact that the Greeks expressed scepticism of Pytheas's book because he described the sea as becoming "congealed" in Northern Europe, clearly describing sea ice. You can go further back than that to the Odyssey, where Homer at one stage describes people living so far north that they can fit in two working days in one 24 hour period - describing the "midnight sun" in summertime.
Did Ancient Romans make art for fun? Like how we doodle or do arts and crafts today. I feel like all I know about art throughout history is about only the most famous artists. Hopefully you understand what I’m trying to ask :) love your channel
We know they did graffiti that is remarkably similar to modern day graffiti so I'm sure they must have doodled. Would love to know if any of it survives, though.
@@Zikar There exists a graffito in Pompeii which is a caricature of a political candidate during an election. The caricature has a big nose just like a modern cartoon, and always reminded me of the drawings in the Asterix books.
Okay. As an indian we have mt meru. But in reality there is no physical mountain named meru not on Himalayas nor anywhere. It's mythical kind of like axis mundi. There is a mundi going through the entire universe and it only passes through earth.
Don't worry! I have reserved all the best stuff for the book. In all my videos, I use only a very small fraction of the material you'll find in "Naked Statues." Everything in this video, for example, came from a single page.
This reminds me of how shortly after the Apollo moon landing my great aunt Augusta asked my father if Heaven was reasonably close to the moon. That from a woman who had obtained a university degree in the 1920's. Faith, science and common sense don't cohabit with any great accomodation of one for the other.
You're wrong. Science and Religion aren't separate. In fact most of the renowned scientists of old were devout believers. Modern times would like you to believe the two are incompatible when in fact its quite the opposite
it bothers me that so many people are disconnected with the esoteric nature of western societies. mountains are always an interesting 'as above so below' dynamic
The Ancient Greek's probably climbed Earth's Mt. Olympus. 1998, I got this Book written by Edith Hamilton Mythology; it was kind of an introduction too each myth told in Greece & Italy which is what I got from Reading this Book. I noticed in Edith's Mythology the writer indicated The Ancient Greeks seemingly talked of Mt. Olympus as though The Great Mountain's were in The Heaven's. At the time didn't make a shred of sense to me Olympus Heaven? 5 year's ago for argument sake, I was led to Biblical Text that I'm now convinced is The 1st Apocalyptic Book in The Bible. An this Book had been in the Original Bible (it's apart of The Ethiopian Orthodox Bible) but, The Church Father's in Europe were afraid of this Book and not able to understand it Ran Away like Jonah thereby removed it from The Scriptures. The Text are the Prophecies of Enoch revealed to him by God. He was born of the bloodline Adam/Seth father's name Jared and Enoch was born when His father Jared was 800 year's old. Enoch did not taste Death listed as The 7th from Adam God simply took Him and brought Him to Heaven. Sorry I thought that a little background information could help with what I'm sharing regarding Mt. Olympus. Before Enoch went to Heaven similar to Elijah later in the Scriptures who also did not taste Death, circumstances on Earth prompted Him to travel to God's Country HEAVEN. While on mission He describes upon arriving in God's Kingdom Heaven; that there were 7 Mountain's. Out of these 7 one mountain was said to be so vast so enormous that it filled the very Heaven's. It would be a wild guest, on my part however, in comparison I got the distinct impression it was far bigger than even Mt. Everest & The Himalayan's Mountains. When I read that part I remembered Edith Hamilton's Introduction in Mythology about Ancient Greek's talking of Mt. Olympus as Heavenward. So The Ancient Greeks most likely did climb that Mountain here on Earth but, there is No way, those guys climbed God's Mountain in Heaven. It should be noted Olympus is it's Greek Name in Hebrew this Mountain is Mt. Sinai or Hebron. That's what I feel about Earthly Mt. Olympus/Mt. Sinai.
Maybe the Mycenaean Greeks or even before believed that, before the resources to climb a large mountain were available? That would make a lot of sense, then later Greeks got curious, found nothing up there, and revised the myths to make a little more sense.
The gods were said to inhabit temples and other sacred spaces. I think a lot of people misunderstand what is meant by Olympus being home of the gods. Did Zeus live on Olympus? Yes, and in the various temples to him across the world. No one ever expected to go there and physically see him though. Well maybe some people did but if you asked a priest they would tell you that that wasn't the case. The fact that a temple was built near the summit was likely because it was made as a home for Zeus at this sacred space which he was said to have a connection to.
If the peaks are covered in mists it'd be easy to conflate the mountain with the sky in one's imagination. And it's part of art; kook at Cezanne and Mount St. Victoire.
I climbed olympus back in 348 BCE, When i woke up, i felt a hand made of light touch me and i woke up in 2008 as a 4 year old. Weird... I could've sworn i was studying under someone...
