Old friends

Visiting archaeological sites is always a thrill if you care about the ancient past. In our case, most of the sites we go to are ones we saw previously, either recently or in our distant past. Seeing these sites again can call forth complicated sets of emotions: excitement, even awe, but also disappointment and confusion. It can be like seeing an old friend after some time apart. You are happy to reconnect with them, but you also can't help but notice how they have changed, sometimes for the better, sometimes not.

The first site we've been to is ancient Olympia. Although I haven't been here for many years, it holds a special place in my heart. It was, I think, the first ancient site I visited during my first ever trip to Greece (when I traveled from Brindisi to Patras and took a bus down in the summer of 1987). I have returned only once, when I did my year at the American School of Classical Studies in 94-95, and I remember being expertly guided by Willie Coulson (and watching my more athletic peers run in the stadium).

Our visit was well favored. The weather was cool and cloudy when we arrived early at the site, and we had it more or less to ourselves for the first hour. It was, at first, just as I remembered it. It has the magical quality--to me, at any rate--of being well preserved enough that it is easy to imagine what it looked like in antiquity, when the Games were in swing and the grounds were crowded with athletes, spectators, hawkers and pilgrims.

As we wandered and guided our students (using an exercise where they had to find specific types of buildings), I recognized much of what I saw. The site had changed little over the years.

Our kids strolling with our old friends, the Manarises, and enjoying the flora, if not the monuments.

There were some slight changes to the site, put in place around the time of the 2004 Olympics, when the stadium was used for the shot put. There were a couple of examples of anastylosis--re-erecting fallen columns. I'd always wondered why they didn't do this at the Temple of Zeus, where many of the column drums of the temple lie scattered around it where they fell in the earthquake that toppled the temple. Probably most of the drums are too weathered at this point, but they decided to re-erect one column to give a sense of scale.

The stadium itself looks exactly as I remembered it on my previous visits.

Of course, we had to engage in a little play-racing. Our students are largely not athletically inclined, so only a couple of them did the state race in earnest (kudos to Sophia and Gracie).

He who starts too soon will be disqualified, but he who starts too late will be left behind.

The biggest changes at Olympia were to the Museum(s). When I went last, there was only one, an old neo-classical building. Much of the collection has been moved to a newer, more modern and spacious structure. The old museum now houses a museum of the history of the ancient Olympics, which uses a combination of pieces from the site and reproductions of pieces from elsewhere to tell the story of the games. (There is also a third museum, of the history of the excavations, but we ran out of time for that one.) All the famous pieces are in the new museum: the pedimental sculptures from the Temple of Zeus, the Nike of Paionios, the Hermes of Praxiteles, the pieces from Pheidias' workshop. It is all exhaustively explained, in true German style.

Some of my favorite pieces (indulge the historian):

Assyrian-style bronze helmet, dedicated by the Athenians from the spoils of the Persian wars

Helmet dedicated by Miltiades after the battle of Marathon. For all we know, the inscription could be his handwriting!

Pedimental sculpture from the Temple of Zeus. It always reminds me of having coffee in the basement of Goldwin Smith Hall at Cornell, staring up at the plaster reproductions of these pieces.

What did the Lapith say to the Centaur? Bite me!

Pheidias' cup

 (It always perplexed me that an amazingly well preserved example of a Palaeochristian church is known to countless tourists only as "the site of Pheidias' workshop", but that is the subject of another blog post.)

The exhibit on the history of the Olympics is very informative, and probably shouldn't be left as an afterthought. I used this to contrast Greek and Roman standards of personal hygiene. The Greeks used oil and strigils. The Romans built baths.

This stone was dedicated by the athlete Bybon, after he lifted it over his head with one hand (143.5 kg). Yes, gym rat bros are eternal.

 To be continued...