{"id":56106,"date":"2009-11-30T18:40:06","date_gmt":"2009-11-30T23:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"1526 at http:\/\/atlasobscura.com"},"modified":"2009-11-30T18:40:06","modified_gmt":"2009-11-30T23:40:06","slug":"pythagoras-cave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/56106","title":{"rendered":"Pythagoras Cave"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/atlasobscura.com\/globe\/europe\/greece\/north-aegean\/nom-s-s-mou\/samos-island\">Samos Island<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/atlasobscura.com\/globe\/europe\/greece\">Greece<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/atlasobscura.com\/categories\/architectural-oddities\/eccentric-homes\">Eccentric Homes<\/a><\/p>\n<p>On the Greek island of Samos is a cave system that was once home and classroom to famous mathematician and philosopher, Pythagoras. The cave is located on Mount Kerkis, an extinct volcano that forms the second-highest peak in the East Aegean.<\/p>\n<p>Though Pythagoras&#8217; theorems have been fundamental to our understanding of mathematics, relatively little is known about the man who first proved that, in a right triangle, a2 + b2 = c2. According to local legend, however, Pythagoras fled to these caves when he was being hunted by the infamous tyrant, Polycrates, around 400 B.C.<\/p>\n<p>During this time, it is believed that Pythagoras inhabited one small cave and used a nearby larger cave as his classroom. One can only imagine the types of lessons Pythagoras taught while living on Mount Kerkis. After all, in addition to being a mathematician, Pythagoras was also the founder of the esoteric religious movement known as Pythagoreanism.<\/p>\n<p>Rooted in both mathematics as well as mysticism, Pythagoreanism has been described as &#8220;a philosophical school, a religious brotherhood, and a political association.&#8221; Though it is known that the Pythagoreans followed many of the religious and ascetic beliefs of their master, much of their practices have been shrouded in secrecy.<\/p>\n<p>Today, most of the caves on Mount Kerkis are open to the public. Visitors can explore the old home of Pythagoras, nearby chapels, as well as a series of stalactites which &#8220;holy water&#8221; allegedly drips from.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static.atlasobscura.com\/files\/imagecache\/place_main\/place_images\/509856830_2c786b0732_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"  width=\"280\" height=\"210\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Samos Island, Greece | Eccentric Homes On the Greek island of Samos is a cave system that was once home and classroom to famous mathematician and philosopher, Pythagoras. The cave is located on Mount Kerkis, an extinct volcano that forms the second-highest peak in the East Aegean. Though Pythagoras&#8217; theorems have been fundamental to our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}