Regular readers, hop down to the next one. For people just joining the blog, pictures are coming to this and every other old post as soon as I get my laptop back from Lenovo in Athens.
Woke up and went running again, this time sadly alone. Still, the run was a good way to wake up and the gates of the site were open, so I saw a little bit of it with no one around. Then I went back to the hotel for breakfast, which has one of the better breakfast spreads thus far on the trip. Abi and I set out for the Museum of the Olympian Games and then proceeded to take a wrong turn due to Google Maps lying to me and then climbed up the side of a small river valley (again, my error). Detour notwithstanding, the museum didn't even open for another hour, so we made our way to the Archaeological Museum for the start of the day.
Both sides of the pedimental scultpure are in decent fragmentary condition.
Before going into the museum, Amy had us pick slips of paper from a hat with the names of our classmates on them. The mission - find our person’s favorite item in the museum and present it to them. I presented Claudia with a bronze eagle, which was, in her words, “a good bird,” which I guess means that I succeeded. Jessica showed me the weights and measures dedicated to Zeus, and you know that I can't resist weights and measures.
One of the lead balance weights.
Clinton presented on the Hermes of Praxiteles while we were in the museum. The sculpture is a masterful carving of Parian marble featuring Hermes carrying the baby Dionysus. Interestingly, the sculpture is not necessarily the original but could instead be a later copy. It's a problem with sculptures, especially if the copyist is good. There's no scientific test for the age of sculptures, but Clinton argued pretty persuasively that this the original. Jury is still out though.
Copy or not, it's still a masterpiece.
We hit the site next. The monitors let us get up onto the Temple of Zeus, which housed one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, a massive 40+ foot tall statue made out of a wide array of material. Unfortunately, it is lost to us now as it was destroyed in Constantinople in the fifth century CE.
We were able to get onto the platform of the temple because we were students.
Sally presented on the temple once we descended back across the rope line. She focused on the statue of Zeus as well as the history of the temple itself. The sculpture was created by the famous sculptor Phidias, who worked on the famous Athena Parthenos sculpture. He fled outstanding warrants in Athens and worked at Olympia on the huge sculpture of Zeus. His workshop on the site has been measured and was found to be exactly the same size as the chamber in which the Zeus sculpture was to be placed in the temple, which is some clever and efficient construction. Sally also had space in her handout for sketching the temple as we looked at it. I think that having people attempt to sketch is a really cool idea and highlighted her teaching background. Excellent and informative presentation.
We circled around more of the complex then went north where I presented on the Olympian treasuries. It was alright. At least Amy didn't have to jump in at the end with really obvious stuff I missed. If you really want to know treasury things, I am more than happy to synthesize some info and point you at some bibliography if that proves insufficient.
We got lunch as small groups (two pita pork gyros is the optimal meal) and then headed back to the sports museum, which was now open. The Olympian Games are a fascinating institution. They started as all male events and eventually added a women’s category, but the spectators remained exclusively male with the exception of the high priestess of Demeter for the area. The number of events gradually expanded in antiquity too, as the games went from one day to five days over the life of the ancient event.
Then we went back into the site and toured around the periphery and athletic buildings. We moved quickly and wound up standing in a courtyard, swearing an oath to participate fairly and within the confines of sport. This was relevant to our next activity. We walked into the stadium at Olympia with Brad blaring the Olympic fanfare on his phone. We took our places on the ancient starting line and took off when Asia signaled to do so. The final results were the same as the Nemea race. We even ran a second heat to get people better starts. I had a blast running. I think I can claim I'm an Olympian now, having won a footrace there. Regular physical exertion in concert with classics things has been a heady mix for me this trip.
Picture of the race. Left to right - Sophie, Jason, Luke, Abi (far side), me. Picture credit to Amy Smith
Finally, we had a lecture from Dr. Aliki Moustaka, an expert on all things cult, in the Olympia museum. The cult of Zeus has existed for quite some time in the area. In Olympia, it has been around since the 11th century BCE. That's a long time to have a continuous cult. Now, the architecture associated with temples and the like isn't present until much later. We learned about a debate regarding the Heraion, or Hera temple, at Olympia. On one side, some people say it was always devoted to Hera. On the other, closer to Dr. Moustaka, there is the opinion that Zeus was a major force in the Heraion until he had his own temple. Ancient religion is MUCH more complicated than it seems on the surface.
And that was today! Tomorrow we have a 645 breakfast and early departure as we do the northern Peloponnese and head back to Athens. It's going to be a slog of a day but we've got some cool sites planned, so I'm not worried.
Thanks for reading.
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