I think we've mentioned this before, but it's worth bringing up again ... just prior to the Olympic Games, this year, the revived Nemean Games will be held. Here's some excerpts from the U.C. Berkeley News:
Just weeks before the 2004 Summer Olympic Games begin in Athens, ancient footraces that gave birth to the Olympics will be revived in a tiny Greek town 80 miles away — the result of more than 30 years of research by the University of California, Berkeley.
In Ancient Nemea, where the campus continues to excavate an athletic site used some 2,300 years ago for the original Panhellenic Games, more than 1,000 people from around the world are expected to converge on July 31 to sprint barefoot and in tunics down the same track used by ancient Greeks.
Today (Tuesday, March 30), the Olympic torch, lit five days ago in Olympia, Greece, passed through Ancient Nemea beneath overcast skies and entered the 45-acre archaeological site. There, in a stadium crowded with more than 5,000 people, Ukranian Valery Borzov, a 1972 Olympic gold medalist in the 100- and 200-meter sprints, ran with the torch past the flags of Greece, the United States and the University of California, through the ancient entrance tunnel and onto the track.
At the end of the track, Borzov used the torch to light a flame on the altar that will burn through the end of July. The Olympic torch then continued on its five-continent relay, which culminates in Athens on Aug. 13.
The New Nemean Games, as they’re known, were first held at the site in 1996 and have continued to take place every four years, just like the modern Olympic Games. But unlike the Olympics, the Nemean event is for untrained runners, awards no medals, can’t be seen on TV and is not sponsored by famous corporations.
"The Olympic movement is a symbol of the nobler aspirations of our human race. But it also is increasingly removed from those who are not extraordinarily athletically gifted," said Stephen Miller, the UC Berkeley classical archaeology professor who has led digs in the village since 1973 and promotes the New Nemean Games.
The word "Panhellenic," he said, means "open to all Greeks." The Olympics are a direct descendant of the Panhellenic Games, which were held in Nemea, Olympia, Isthmia and Delphi.
Miller said that he and the villagers consider the 2004 New Nemean Games "a supplement, a complement, to the Olympics, because officials (planning the Olympics) have paid little attention to antiquities. They seem more concerned about showing Athens as a modern place."
Dr. Aristotelis Kallis, president of the Society for the Revival of the Nemean Games, added that the New Nemean Games are a "little sister" to the Olympics, but that, unlike this summer’s games in Athens, they "will always be at Nemea, and that is due, ultimately, to the University of California."
The Nemean Games could not have been revived without the UC Berkeley research — excavations and subsequent analysis and study — conducted there for decades, said Miller, who joined the faculty in 1973 and plans to retire in December.
"Excavation for its own sake is ridiculous, like carrying out an experiment in a lab without application," he said. "Scholarly publications are important, but so are making results available to the general public."
Miller and his students have made headlines for unearthing important antiquities at the site — the stadium and track; an entrance tunnel to the track, lined with the graffiti of ancient athletes; a temple of Zeus; a bathhouse; and what’s considered the world’s oldest remaining athletic locker room.
In 1993, Miller led the reconstruction at the track of an ancient starting device made of wood, rope and cord that once launched the foot races in antiquity. A major project now in the works is the reconstruction of the temple, where athletes made sacrifices before competing. So far, two toppled columns of the original 34 are back in place — happily, said Miller, three others were not among those thrown down by vandals in 435 A.D.
[...]
For the 100-meter sprint, runners are organized by age and gender in groups of 12. They enter the ancient locker room, remove their clothes, don a simple tunic, and walk through the long entrance tunnel to await their turn on the track. After receiving a lane assignment drawn from a helmet, they take their places at the starting block and wait for a signal to begin the races. A 7.5 kilometer race also is run — from the ancient temple of Herakles near the town of Kleonai to the stadium.
The winner of each race immediately receives a ribbon around the head and a palm branch, and is awarded a crown of wild celery at the day’s end.
"We want to give participants something of the feeling of an athlete in the fourth century B.C.," said Miller. "The direct contact of bare feet on ancient soil and starting blocks creates a sense of history that has to be experienced to be understood. Many people describe the chill bumps they felt as they passed through the entrance tunnel, from the 21st century A.D. to the fourth B.C." [more]
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
