Mystical systems
Omphalos
Direct answer
Omphalos: The omphalos is the navel stone of Delphi, a carved stone in the temple of Apollo that the ancient Greeks said marked the centre of the world.
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At a glance
- Also called
- navel of the world, navel stone
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Pythia, Apollo, Oracle, Temple
The omphalos is the navel stone of Delphi, a carved stone in the temple of Apollo that the ancient Greeks said marked the centre of the world.
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What does omphalos mean?
Omphalos is the Greek word for navel. The stone of that name stood in or near the inner room of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. The story told was that Zeus, wishing to find the middle of the world, set two eagles flying from its opposite ends, and that they met above Delphi.
Ancient pictures show the stone as a rounded cone covered by a net of woollen bands, sometimes with an eagle on either side. A marble stone carved with such a net, a copy of Hellenistic or Roman date, is in the museum at Delphi. Other peoples have named a centre of their own, as medieval maps did with Jerusalem.
On the tree of the hidden arts: Sacred places.
What sets Omphalos apart
The omphalos turns a claim about rank into an object. Other Greek sanctuaries had older images and richer temples, but only Delphi said it stood at the middle. The net carved over the stone copies the fillets of raw wool that were laid on sacred things, so the marble shows a stone dressed for worship. Nearby stood another stone, said to be the one Cronus swallowed in place of the infant Zeus, which Pausanias says was oiled each day.
- Word: Greek for navel
- Story: two eagles loosed by Zeus from the ends of the world met at Delphi
- Surviving stone: a marble copy with a carved net, in the museum at Delphi
- Described by: Pausanias, second century CE
- Shown on: Greek coins and painted vases, with Apollo seated upon it
Often mistaken for something else: The tripod was the seat from which the Pythia spoke; the omphalos was the marker of the place, and no reply was given from it.
The story behind Omphalos
The traveller Pausanias saw an omphalos of white marble at Delphi in the second century CE and noted that the poet Pindar agreed it was the centre of the earth; the tale of the eagles is given by the geographer Strabo, who credits it to Pindar. Greek coins and vase paintings show Apollo seated on the stone. French excavators recovered the netted marble copy near the temple. Scholars of religion, Mircea Eliade among them, later used the word for any place a people treats as the centre from which the world is ordered.
Why Omphalos matters
The stone shows how a sanctuary claimed its rank: not by size or age but by being the point everything else was measured from.
How to read Omphalos
Writers borrow the word for a sacred centre in any culture, a hearth, a mountain or a city, from which directions are counted.
Omphalos in practice: an example
A visitor to the museum at Delphi finds the netted stone and asks why a people would want to stand at the middle of things.
Where readings of Omphalos go wrong
The stone on show is a later copy, and which stone, if any, was the first omphalos is not known.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- omphalos stone, navel of the world, omphalos of delphi, navel stone, omphalos meaning
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What does omphalos mean?
It is Greek for navel. At Delphi it named a stone that was said to mark the centre of the world, as the navel marks the middle of the body.
Where is the omphalos now?
A marble copy carved with a net of woollen bands, made in Hellenistic or Roman times, is in the archaeological museum at Delphi. A plainer stone stands outdoors on the site.
Why did the Greeks think Delphi was the centre of the world?
By the story, Zeus released two eagles from the two ends of the world and they met there. The claim also suited a sanctuary to which all the Greek cities sent to ask advice.
