The ancient Greek omphalos is a curious object. What one sees if one were to go to the museum in Delphi would be a partially restored stone in a shape reminiscent of an egg with relief carvings of rope netting surrounding it. In fact it would look like this:
Omphalos at Delphi
The omphalos hardly looks like belly buttons I know!
Historians and Classicists have proposed various purposes behind this peculiar object. Some say it works as a funnel for the fumes that caused the Oracle at Delphi to get visions (read: the visions were probably just hallucinations from fumes rising out of the ground), while others propose mythological meaning such as the stone the goddess Rhea gave to Cronus (in an effort to thwart him from eating the newborn son they had together: Zeus). What is generally agreed upon is that this particular stone is probably a replica built in the 4th century B.C.E. The original was said, by ancient sources, to have been covered in actual netting, not carved netting.
The importance of the omphalos, however, was more tied to its location than to any role it directly played in mythology. Delphi was an incredibly important locale in ancient Greece; it was at Delphi that Apollo—a major deity of the Greek pantheon—had his temple. The Pythia, aka the Oracle at Delphi, was one of the most important oracles in all of ancient Greece. Delphi was itself fairly neutral territory, granting all Greek city-states access to Apollo’s temple. Also, Delphi hosted one of the Panhellenic games (which later inspired our contemporary Olympics). Delphi’s role was therefore in many ways crucial to the general ancient Greek way of life, and the omphalos was a great symbol of that.
The omphalos was also integral in establishing a proof of creation for the Greeks. It gave them something to identify with as a people. The mythological role of the omphalos is how they could achieve said identification; since the omphalos was said to be the stone Rhea used to save Zeus’ life and trick Cronus, it stands to reason that its presence in the world would reaffirm the ancient Greeks’ belief in their mythos and their history as a people (I shouldn’t even mention the fact that we’re looking at just a replica).
It then serves doubly as a symbol for the origin of mankind, as well. While Zeus is no mere mortal, the representation of Zeus by the omphalos in Rhea’s deceit does well to insinuate a connection of human origins to the origins of the gods. The omphalos stands in for the baby—a very intimate and connected (literally; until the umbilical cord gets severed, the baby is attached by the navel) object to Rhea, the mother. Imposing upon the gods some mortal experiences like conventional birth and the severing of the umbilical cord (it is called the omphalos, after all) establishes a link between them (the gods) and the ancient Greeks themselves.
The omphalos at Delphi was a significant object for the ancient Greeks, as it represented their unity, importance, identity, and origins. What we can glean from this knowledge, then, is the significance of such an object, such a word. Omphalos, the navel, carries with it a great amount of symbolic weight regarding the very source of the human condition: our own births.
The Omphalos 