Delphi

Delphi is an ancient sacred precinct in Phocis, central Greece, regarded by the ancient Greeks as the center of the world and marked there by the stone monument called the Omphalos, that served for centuries as the seat of the Pythia, the priestess whose oracular pronouncements at the sanctuary of Apollo were consulted across the classical world. Occupation of the site reaches back to Neolithic times and intensified during the Mycenaean period, and its surviving monuments include the fourth-century BC Temple of Apollo, a theatre and a stadium seating about 6,500 spectators, the circular Tholos at the sanctuary of Athena Pronaia, and a row of treasuries built by individual Greek city-states to display their own dedications. UNESCO inscribed the site in 1987 as the Archaeological Site of Delphi, citing it as an outstanding expression of the unity the ancient Greek world found in a single shared sanctuary.