The Forum

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Kudos

The July/August 2004 Olympics Issue is a classic—most interesting and informative.

An Entourage of Asses

Tony Perrottet (“Walking to Olympia,” July/August 2004) notes that the Roman emperor Nero’s wife “brought 500 asses on the trip [to the games at Olympia in 67 A.D.], so that she could bathe in their milk.”

This famous milk-bath story is related by Pliny the Elder in Natural History. But the reference is to Poppaea Sabina, Nero’s second wife, who died in the summer of 65 A.D. So she could not have made the trip in late 66 and 67 A.D.

Yet Nero did take his empress with him to Greece. This lady was his third wife, Statilia Messallina, whom he married in early 66 A.D.—though, as far as we know, she did not have an entourage of asses with her. (For more information, see Miriam T. Griffin’s biography, Nero: The End of a Dynasty [1984].)

Dinosaur Bones?

Tony Perrottet’s excellent article on spectators at the ancient Olympic Games contains an error I feel compelled to correct, since I was cited as the source.

As Perrottet states, travelers to Arcadia in the Peloponnesus were shown mythological relics such as “the thighbones of giants.” Indeed, a colossal shoulder blade said to belong to the mythic founder of the Olympic Games, Pelops, was exhibited in its own temple at Olympia.

But Perrottet goes on to say that such bones were “actually dinosaur fossils.” Dinosaurs were reptiles. The supersized fossils discovered by the ancient Greeks and Romans belonged to mammoths and other enormous mammals that roamed the Mediterranean from the Miocene epoch through the Pleistocene epoch, about 8 million to 10,000 years ago. The landscapes inhabited by the ancient Greeks and Romans are too young to contain the fossils of dinosaurs, which died out at the end of the Cretaceous epoch, 65 million years ago.

Jericho Lost

One of your short reviews (Briefly Noted, July/August 2004, p. 51) refers to the oldest bricks in the world, uncovered by Kathleen Kenyon at Jericho. Please advise your readers that a popular bus tour from Jerusalem to Masada stops very close to ancient Jericho, though they would never know it.

The problem is that the bus is run by Israelis while the Jericho site is held by Palestinians. The bus stops at Israeli Ein Gedi for a swim in the Dead Sea, and it stops at Jericho for a cold drink, but passengers are not told that one of the oldest urban sites in the world is just a short walk away.

Face the Facts!

The editorial in the July/August 2004 issue (Jack Meinhardt, “A Flame that Burns: The Olympics Aren’t All Fun and Games”) implies that Germany lost the Olympics in 1936. This is a myth that has been perpetuated ever since.

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The top four results were: Germany, 89 medals; U.S., 56 medals; Italy, 22 medals; and Hungary, 16 medals.

As people with a respect for history, let’s not be prejudiced against facts!

Jack Meinhardt replies:

Here’s what I wrote: “In 1936 the German Nazi party tried, and failed, to make [the Olympic Games] a demonstration of ‘Aryan’ supremacy.”

On April 23, 1933, Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels stated: “German sport has only one task: to strengthen the character of the German people, imbuing it with the fighting spirit and steadfast camaraderie necessary in the struggle for its existence.” Three years later, on July 16, 1936, Goebbels issued a directive to journalists: “Press coverage should not mention that there are two non-Aryans among the women [on the German Olympic team]: Helene Mayer [fencing] and Gretel Bergmann [track and field].” The subsequent Berlin Olympics, begun on August 1, were funded entirely by Hitler’s National Socialist regime.

In the games African Americans won 14 medals, almost a fourth of the medals awarded to the U.S. team. Jesse Owens himself won four gold medals, one fewer than the number of gold medals won by the entire German track and field team (men and women). And 13 Jews won 14 medals—including Helene Mayer, who took a silver in the individual foil event. (Both Mayer and Bergmann later emigrated to the U.S. to avoid persecution.)

It’s clear, I think, that the Nazis tried, and failed, to use the games to crown a master-race.

Kansas Administrative Regulation 44–12-313: Obscenity

(a) No inmate shall have in possession or under control any obscene writing, pictures, items, or devices. Each violation of this regulation shall be a class II offense unless the obscene material involves children under the age of 18, in which case violation of this regulation shall be a class I offense.

(b) The material shall be considered obscene if the average person applying contemporary community standards would find that the material, taken as a whole, meets the following conditions:

(1) Appeals to the prurient interest;

(2) has patently offensive representations or descriptions of either of the following: (A) Ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, including sexual intercourse, sodomy, homosexuality, and bestiality; or (B) masturbation, excretory functions, sadomasochistic abuse, child pornography, or lewd exhibition of the genitals; and

(3) would not be considered by a reasonable person to have serious literary, educational, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Odyssey Banned in Kansas?

As a long-time subscriber, I very much enjoy Archaeology Odyssey and I have learned a lot from the magazine.

Sadly, this may have to come to an end. The state of Kansas has adopted a regulation (KAR 44–12-313; see above) that puts your publication on a par with Hustler and the like. Because you occasionally run articles illustrated by Pompeian frescoes, and show pictures of Greek statuary, your publication is now obscene on the grounds of nudity. I am currently fighting this ban and will continue to do so as long as it takes.

We are confident that Archaeology Odyssey will remain available in Kansas—both to inmates and to others—because of clause #3 in the regulation.—Ed.

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Errata

On page 9 of the July/August 2004 issue, the editors introduced an error into the last sentence of Shelley Wachsmann’s letter regarding Minoan ships represented in wall paintings from Thera (ancient Santorini). That sentence should have read: “These ships are being handled in an archaic manner, as part of a cult festival, in which contemporaneous ships are meant to represent an older type of vessel that no longer existed at the time of the painting.”

Kudos
The July/August 2004 Olympics Issue is a classic—most interesting and informative.