Did Ancient Greeks Worship Earthquakes? Sacred Sites Built on Fault Lines

The ancient Greeks may have worshiped earthquakes, purposely building temples and other important structures directly above fault lines. But the same natural phenomenon they exalted could have also destroyed them. According to the University of Plymouth, it’s not an entirely new idea that earthquakes played a role in the lives of ancient Greeks: “Scientists have previously suggested Delphi, a mountainside complex once home to a legendary oracle, gained its position in Classical Greek society largely as a result of a sacred spring and intoxicating gases which emanated from a fault line caused by an earthquake.” Researcher Iain Stewart says, however, that other cities and structures around the Aegean region followed similar patterns. In his paper in the journal Proceedings of the Geologists’…