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The Amphitheater of Dodona in Mount Tomorr
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The location of the ancient temple of Dodona is an argument that has often led scholars to debate. In the thirties, Perikli Ikonomi, with the book "Tomori and the Pelasgian Dodona", tried to show that its location is in Albania. Legend has it that long ago, two birds departed from Egypt. One of them stopped in Libya, where the temple of Ammon Zeus was built, and the other stopped in Dodona. Another temple was built there, where the most famous oracle of antiquity was located, that of Dodona, whose descendant would be the oracle of Delphi.
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| Perikli Ikonomi |
And if the temple of Ammon Zeus is known to be in Libya, the question of the location of the temple of Dodona is more complicated. A good number of scholars defend the thesis that the ancient temple of Dodona is located in modern Greek lands, at the foot of Mount Tammaros, about 18 km from Ioannina. There is another smaller group, part of which is the scholar Perikli Ikonomi (1882-1977), who does not think in this way. In 1934 he began to write "Tomori and the Pelasgian Dodona" (Tomorr, is a mountain in today Albania) a study through which he tries to prove that the temple of Dodona is on Mount Tomorr. He first published this book at his own expense in 1936, in a small number of copies. One of these was owned by family members and the other by the National Historical Museum. After almost 8 years, the study was republished. To prove his thesis about the location of the temple of Dodona he relied on several sources: the etymology of the word Tomorr, the location described by authors of antiquity and similar geographical construction of these two places, as well as the folklore of the inhabitants around Mount Tomorr. From the first page of the book, he shows the reason why he is undertaking such a job when he says that he is raising this issue to show the real location of the original temple of Dodona. Ikonomi writes that there is a group of Albanian scholars who oppose the idea that Dodona of Southern Epirus (Mount Tammaros, in Ioannina) is only a late copy of the original, which should be located on Mount Tomorr in South Albania. Important to him is the fact that the two mountains have similar names (Tammaros and Tomor). At this point he extracts the origin of the word Tomorr. He writes that Mount Tomorr is considered the dwelling of the God of the Pelasgians, that is, of the ancient Albanians. In addition, Tomorr is called the mountain of the good, hence the priests of the oracle of Dodona were called Tomura, good. "In the popular language of Albanians, every holy place was called and continues to be called mostly even today a good place. So, in this phrase, the adjective "good" is used in the sense of "holy", and consequently, Tomor mountain means the mountain of God ", he explains.
He further argues that the priests or fortune-tellers of Dodona were called Tomuri and their fortune tellers were called Tomure. "Tomar or Tmar was the name of the mountain near or on which the temple of Dodona was located, otherwise known as the famous shrine to the Pelasgians," writes Ikonomi. But this analysis is not enough to prove his thesis, so he also considers all possible historical evidence. A separate chapter is devoted to the descriptions of the authors of antiquity such as Herodotus, Hesiod Pliny, Pindar, Plutarch, Strabo, etc., notes which take Dodona from Ioannina and bring it in South Albania. One of the notes that Ikonomi quotes is that of Stragjirit: “On page 28 of the notes where he talks about Dodona, he mentions as indefinite the location of Mount Tomorr. He claims that others place this mountain higher and further North of Pindus Mountain. He also says that the Molossians were the most mentioned and most famous of the Haonians, that they also had the famous temple of Dodona in their province. Citing the notes of these authors and geographers, which provide various details about the temple of Dodona, Ikonomi manages to build an overview of the location of this temple. After concluding with the descriptions of these authors, in the last chapter he gives verbal reports about Mount Tomorr and its surroundings.
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Tomorr Mount
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Thus, one of these reports says that on Tomorr have stayed the three sisters of Dodon, to whom the old kings came to ask them about their fate and that of the kingdom. According to another legend, at the top of Tomorr mountain, there is an old woman carved on a rock who guards a goat and a kid. Rumor has it that according to the Iknomi it may be related to the goat Amalthia, who according to mythology, fed Zeus when his mother, Rea, hid him to protect him from his father, Saturn, who ate his children. Between Ikonomi and Mount Tomorr there was a more special connection than that between a scholar and a subject.
