The Egyptians claimed that the oracle of Dodona was founded by a woman, who was carried off by Phoenicians from the temple of Zeus at Thebes and sold in Greece. But the priestesses of Dodona told Herodotus another story. Two black doves flew away from Egypt; one of them alighted at Dodona, the other in Libya. The former perched on an oak and speaking with a human voice announced that on that very spot there should be an oracle of Zeus. Those who heard the dove obeyed. Herodotus argued that the woman who had been carried off by the Phoenicians founded the shrine, in honor of the god she remembered from her hometown. But first she had to learn to speak Greek, at which point the people understood the words of the “dove / priestess”.