Nikon D7200, 12-24mm f/4G lens @12mm f/8, aperture priority. |
"Excavations have taken place at Olympia for more than a century, but interpretations of the early history of the site have recently been revised. Archaeologists now suggest that major athletic events were not part of the earliest festivals at Olympia. Scholars have claimed variously that the original contests served as sacred rituals, funeral games, offerings to gods, initiations, or reenactments of myths. The second-century A.D. traveler Pausanias and others recount myths that Herakles founded the games to honor Zeus or that they were established by King Pelops after winning a chariot race against King Oinomaos of Pisa. Traditions also speak of a refounding or reorganization of the games during the Greek Dark Age (ca. the ninth century B.C.). The earliest literary account of athletic competition, Patroklos' funeral games in Homer's Iliad, reflects the athletic world of the eighth century or earlier. Homer mentions valuable prizes (bronze cauldrons and tripods; horses, cattle, and women; armor and iron) and contests (chariot racing, boxing, wrestling, running, armed combat, discus, archery, and javelin), but his poems contain no specific reference to games at Olympia. Although archaeologists have found evidence of funeral games in the Late Bronze Age (thirteenth and twelfth centuries B.C.) elsewhere in Greece (a funerary coffer from Boeotia with scenes of mourning and various contests; vases with scenes of boxers and chariot races), there is no evidence for them at Olympia." — Donald G. Kyle, "Winning at Olympia", Archaeology, April 6, 2004 |
