The Mysterious Ancient Greek Necromancy Temple of Acheron

Necromancy in ancient Greece referred to the calling up of the souls of the dead from the Underworld to consult with them for oracular purposes.

The evocation of the dead was a ritual that was practiced secretly, and it is documented by surviving papyri from the fourth and third centuries BC. The Nekromanteion, meaning ‘oracle of the dead,’ was an ancient temple dedicated to the god of the Underworld, Hades, and his consort, the goddess Persephone.

The ancient Greeks believed that while the bodies of the dead decayed in the earth, their souls would be released and travel to the Underworld through fissures in the earth. The spirits of the dead were said to possess abilities that the living did not have, including the power to foretell the future.

Hence, the ancient Greeks erected temples in places thought to be entrances to the Underworld to practice necromancy—communicate with the dead—and receive prophecies.

Cleansing Ceremonies and Sacrifices in Ancient Greece’s Necromancy

The Necromancer is the mediator between the person who requests communication with the spirit of the dead and the deceased individual. The person who would request contact with the dead did so because he or she believed the spirit potentially possessed information of importance to him or her.

A prerequisite for such contact was that it not infringe upon the will of the deceased. In other words, if it was known that the dead would not want such contact or wouldn’t want to reveal specific information, then attempting to make contact was frowned upon. According to reports, forcing the deceased to divulge information against their will had its consequences.

Traditionally, the Necromancer used the remains of the deceased as a bridge to communicate with the dead person’s “shadow.” For example bones, skin, hair, and nails of the corpse as well as body parts such as hands, teeth, and eyes were used. The skull was considered to be particularly useful, since it “housed” the organs of the senses of sight and hearing, the senses with which the deceased acquired secrets.

There was a belief that the soul of the deceased was likely to possess two types of vital information. The first of these was that which had been seen or heard while alive, while the second related to events or information that had been learned about after death.

Oftentimes, Necromancers would summon a “shadow” to discover the hidden location of a treasure that the person was rumored to have possessed while alive. It was believed that the dead had access to mystical knowledge, and sometimes, the necromancer would call upon them so as to learn about the occult arts of magic, which were considered to be learned in the afterlife.

Ritual use of the Nekromanteion involved elaborate ceremonies wherein participants  seeking to speak to the dead would begin by gathering in the ziggurat-like temple and eating a meal of broad beans, pork, barley bread, oysters, and a narcotic compound. Following a cleansing ceremony and the sacrifice of sheep, the faithful would descend through a chthonic series of meandric corridors leaving offerings as they passed through a number of iron gates.

The Nekromanteia (plural) would pose a series of questions and chant prayers. The participants would then witness the priest arise from the floor and begin to fly about the temple with the use of Aeorema-like theatrical cranes.

The Acheron River Nekromanteion

The Acheron River in Thesprotia in western Greece was the site of a number of mythical descents. Orpheus descended there, as did Theseus and Heracles, who did so twice—once for Theseus and once for Cerberus. Hades, the god of the Underworld himself, and Persephone, his wife, were down there.

The actual Nekromanteion on the Acheron is directly attested by four authors. Among these are Herodotus and Pausanias, both of whom used the term nekromanteion and necromancy; an Odyssey scholiast, who refers to the lake ̄of Nekropompos (“Lake Sending-off-the-dead”); and Lucius Ampelius, who speaks of a “descent to the dead below for the purpose of taking up prophecies.”

The lexicographers were undoubtedly referring to the same thing when they spoke of a psychopompeion (“place of sending-off souls”) among the Molossians, the neighboring tribe of the Thesprotians in Epirus.

The oldest reference to the necromancy of Acheron is found in Homer’s Odyssey, when Circe advises Odysseus to meet Tiresias, the blind prophet, in the Underworld and consult the oracle for his return to Ithaca.

Homer’s description of Odysseus’ journey and his consultation with the ghosts of Tiresias and others is strongly grounded in the geography of Thesprotia, as Pausanias saw. The obvious and seemingly unavoidable explanation of this is that the nekromanteion, much like the Dodona oracle, was already established there.

In the Frogs, Aristophanes makes brief mention of three underworld rivers: “the black-hearted rock of the Styx and the crag of the Acheron, dripping with blood, and the dogs that run around the Cocytus.” The “crag of Acheron” is most easily read as denoting a rocky outcrop over the river where blood offerings are made.