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| Temple of Zeus |
I’m going backwards in travel time, but that clock has lost
its meaning.
I did not expect the
sanctuary of Olympia to have such a sacred atmosphere.
Here, the central god is Zeus, whereas in
Delphi, the god is Apollo.
Numerous
groups of sightseers crowded into this sanctuary, particularly Greek high school students studying their ancient culture, yet there was a general
silence that came upon us as we approached.
The air was cool with high clouds shading us and then suddenly hot in
the sun with all the surrounding hills still carrying the green of winter rains.
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Temple of Hera with sacrificial
altar in the foreground |
 |
The Philippeon begun by Philip II
and completed by Alexander the Great |
The sanctuary of Olympia flourished from the 10
th
C. BCE to 426 CE, the year in which the emperor Theodosius II closed all the
ancient sanctuaries and banned all of the ancient cults.
Olympia had been a major religious, cultural
and sporting center, a place that linked Greece with colonies on the
Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
When
the pagan religions were suppressed, the Olympic games, which had continued for
twelve centuries and the site fell into disuse.
Being adjacent to a river, flooding caused
some decay as did earthquakes.
A new
theory is that tsunamis were also responsible for some destruction of the
buildings.
 |
Entrance to the Olympic Field with
statuary platforms on the left |
The modern games were not reinstituted until 1894 by Baron
Pierre de Coubertin and are now completely international.
During ancient times, only pure born Greek
men could participate and women were not even permitted to watch.
Women are still fighting the good fight as in
the former ban on women in the high ski jump with the reason given until a few
years ago that it might cause harm to their reproductive organs.
Women were also excluded from performing in
the ancient theatre as they were in many other cultures.
But all of that is another discussion.
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The playing field where I raced with two young girls
from Australia traveling in our group. The stone on the slope
to the left was the Statue of Demeter and the place on the
right slope was the judges stand. |
It’s hard to understand the suppression and destruction of cultures
such as happened here in Greece, in fantastic works of art.
Or in the destruction of the great Buddhist
statues by the Taliban for instance in our own time.
The suppression of change and suppression of
past expression continues everywhere.
What a world!
What a world!
It happens in neighborhoods, in schools in
our own cities and at our own dinner tables in subtle ways that we don’t
necessarily notice.
How do we appreciate
and continue traditions that we honor without erasing what is also around us? Globalization,
with all its whole-world view, is forcing us into a tight spot and forcing
difficult cultural questions.
How much
does the culture of this island Serifos give up because of tourism, its main
economic resource?
America as the great
experiment of freedom erased plenty of Native cultures and cultures of newly
arrived immigrants. Yet how interesting that hoards of people today are
flocking to so-called pagan sites and studying them as if hungry to assist and
revive the spirit of greatness in art and expression from these ancient times.
We have so much to learn.
