ANCIENT OMPHALOS AT DELPHI: GEOMETRICALLY A SPACE-INVERTING ANAMORPHOSCOPE

摘要

Whether the artisan who made the Omphalos at Delphi over 2500 years ago recognized the optical transform properties of its shape or not, its geometrical features are nevertheless those of a space-inverting anamorphoscopic mirror. Specifically, it is similar in shape to a circle-inverting anamorphoscope. We speculate that select members of the ancient religious sect at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi realized the symbolism of inverting all of space outside the Omphalos into the image field inside its base, thus making it the virtual centre of the World.