"…inquire of Zeus of the flashing thunderbolt, if he has any message to give
concerning men whose spirits are seeking to attain great excellence and a
breathing-space from toils."
—excerpt from the Eighth Olympic Ode, by Pindar (c. 522-420 BC), courtesy
of the Perseus Project digital
library.
Introduction
During the original Olympic games in ancient Greece, champions were not awarded
gold, silver, and bronze medals as they are today. Instead, ancient Olympic victors
were awarded an olive branch twisted into a circle to form a crown. The wild olive,
called kotinos, had deep religious significance for the ancient Greeks.
At the ancient Olympics, only the champion was recognized—there were no prizes
for runners up. In the modern era, medals recognizing the top three finishers
have supplanted the olive-crown as the Olympic award.
Most students can probably recall seeing at least one Olympic medal ceremony.
The sight of a triumphant Olympic athlete stooping to receive the gold medal
as his or her country's anthem plays is one of the more moving images of each
Olympiad. However, students have probably never had a chance to inspect an
Olympic medal up-close. If students were to examine the medals awarded at the
Athens 2004 games, they would find on both sides of the medal a series of strange
markings—some looking remarkably like English letters and others appearing
as incomprehensible lines and squiggles.
The string of symbols on both sides of the medal are, of course, Greek letters.
The International
Olympic Committee (IOC) website's description of the medal design for the
2004 Athens Olympics states that "the main feature of the medals is the Greek
character shown on both sides… This is of particular importance, as from now
on all Olympic medals will reflect the Greek character of the Games as regards
both their origin and their revival." Students can view
a graphic of the medal in full detail on the IOC's Athens 2004 homepage,
available through the EDSITEment resource Internet
Public Library.
Students are bound to be curious to know what all that Greek writing means.
This lesson plan uses an EDSITEment-created Greek alphabet animation to help students "decode" the inscription on the Olympic medal. Because the
Olympic medal is both a familiar and mysterious object for students, it presents
an ideal prompt to build basic literacy in the Greek alphabet. Thus, this lesson
uses the Athens 2004 medal inscription as an elementary "text" to help students
practice reading Greek and to help reinforce the link between ancient Greek
culture and the Olympic games.
Guiding Question
How can familiarity with the Greek alphabet help us decipher the inscription on
the Athens 2004 Olympic medals?
Learning Objectives
By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
Recognize and identify Greek letters by name.
Read (by sounding out) a string of Greek words.
Explain the content and significance of the inscription on the Athens 2004
Olympic medal.
Identify Greek roots of two English words.
Identify the Greek poet Pindar, and the Greek poetic form called epinicia.
Briefly state Greece's role in Olympic history.
Preparing to Teach this Lesson
Familiarize yourself with the IOC's short description of the medal designed
for the 2004 summer games by visiting the Athens page of the IOC website,
available through the EDSITEment resource, Internet Public Library. You may
wish to project or print out, copy, and distribute the graphic
depicting the medal, as this will become the central "text" in the activity
described below. Remember to print out both the obverse
and reverse
sides of the medal.
Peruse the ancient Olympics
exhibit from the EDSITEment-reviewed Perseus
Project website. The exhibit provides background on the Greek foundations
of the Olympic concept, while comparing and contrasting the Ancient and Modern
games.
Review a translation
and transliteration
of the Greek poet Pindar's Eighth Olympic Ode, available through the Perseus
Digital Library. Note that the first seven words of the Ode appear on the
reverse
side of the Olympic medal. The ode was composed in 460 BC to honor the victory
of Alkimedon of Aegina in wrestling. Pindar, who lived from c. 522 to 440
BC is remembered as the greatest master of a Greek poetic form called epinicia—poems
that celebrate champions of athletic festivals throughout the ancient Greek
world.
To acquaint yourself with Pindar's biography and with the basic form and
content of the Olympic Odes, please refer to a reference
article from the Perseus Project website. You can also read about Pindar
and other epinician poets by reading a brief article called "Cultural
achievements and the Games," from the Perseus
Project ancient Olympics exhibit.
Project or have your students click
here to view a graphic of the Athens 2004 Olympic medal. Alternatively,
distribute printed paper copies of both sides of the medal. Explain to your
students that the characters appearing on the medal are Greek letters.
Inform your students that beginning with the Athens 2004 games, all Olympic
medals will showcase Greece's connection to the Olympics. Briefly explain that this is because
the very first Olympic games took place in Olympia, Greece in 776 BC. Explain
that the ancient Greeks held Olympic games every four years from 776 BC until
393 AD in honor of their god Zeus. Then, at the end of the nineteenth century,
a Frenchman named Pierre de Coubertin had the idea of reviving the Olympic
tradition by holding an international competition for amateur athletes. The
first modern Olympics were hosted by Athens, Greece in 1896.
Help your students understand some basic similarities and differences between
the ancient and modern Olympics by drawing on information presented in the
ancient Olympics exhibit
from the EDSITEment-reviewed Perseus
Project website.
2. Cracking the code
Have your students open the EDSITEment-created Greek Alphabet animation, and have them use the animation to read off the names of all the Greek letters
appearing on the two Greek words on the medal's obverse side. Students will need to mouse-over each Greek letter to reveal the letter's name.
Going by the names of the Greek letters, have the students try to sound
out the two Greek words appearing on the front
(obverse) side of the medal (e.g. theta makes a "th" sound, eta makes
an "eh" sound, pi makes a "p" sound). Remind your students to be careful: some letters might not sound like the English letters they appear to be. The words on the front of the medal should read: Olumpiada Athena.
Now have your students turn to the reverse
side of the medal. Tell your students that the text in front of them is the
opening lines of a poem written in 460 BC by a famous poet named Pindar to
honor the victory of an Olympic wrestler named Alkimedon.
First, have your students name the Greek letters appearing on this side
of the medal. [Note: There is one letter that students will have trouble
with. In the inscription, the letter theta appears in a more ancient form,
as a circle with two intersecting lines, rather than as an oval with a single
horizontal line. Please inform your students accordingly. You may tell them
that the archaic form of theta appearing on the medal shows that the Phoenician
alphabet provided the model for many of the Greek letters. To demonstrate
this point, you may show the class an EDSITEment created animation
presenting the relationship between the Greek and Phoenician alphabets].
Then, going by the names of the Greek letters, have the students try to
transcribe the Greek text by substituting the equivalent English letters.
Next, students can compare their own work to a transliteration
of Pindar's Ode available through the Perseus
Project Digital Library. Students will note that the medal contains only
the first seven words of the ode. Have your students read the seven words
in transliteration a few times, and then see if they can read them directly
off the medal itself.
With the transliteration in front of the students, ask them to identify
any words that sound like English words. Let students guess at what those
words might mean. (see Step 9)
Finally, show students the English translation
of Pindar's Eighth Olympic Ode. They will find that the seven Greek words
inscribed on the medal translate as: "Mother of golden-crowned contests, Olympia,
queen of truth!"
Note the Greek derivation of two of the English words (i.e. mater = mother;
aethlon = contest, as in "athletics" or "triathlon")
3. Pindar and Alkimedon
Once students have successfully deciphered the medal inscription, you may provide
them with some basic background information on the author and subject of the Ode.
You might want to share some of the information provided in the Cultural
achievements and the Games article from the Perseus project. Make sure that
students can define epinicia. You can make the concept of the epinicia
more relevant to students by encouraging them to cite examples of modern-day "odes"
to real or fictional sports heroes. Besides poetry, how do we go about commemorating
great athletic achievements? Can students name films or books they've enjoyed
that pay tribute to a particular athlete?
One well-known ode to a fictional athlete is Ernest Laurence Thayer's "Casey
at the Bat." The full text
of the poem is available through the EDSITEment-reviewed website of the
American Academy of Poets. You
might read a few passages from "Casey at the Bat" and compare or contrast them
to some of the more accessible passages from Pindar's Olympic Ode. What do the
poems tell us about the attitudes towards sport, competition, victory, and defeat in
the societies in which each poet lived?
Remind students that Pindar's Ode describes the victory of a wrestler named
Alkimedon, who came from a Greek island just southwest of Athens called Aegina.
You can point out the location of Aegina on this map
of the ancient Greek world from the Plato
and His Dialogues site available through Perseus
Project. Finally, to give students a sense of the rules of ancient Greek
wrestling, share with them the short piece
on wrestling available through the Perseus
Project exhibit. Make sure to show students the Greek vase painting depicting
two wrestlers.
Assessment
Instruct students to create their own 2-line epinician verse celebrating
one of the accomplishments of their favorite athlete. Then, have students transcribe
the ode they've written into Greek by using our Greek
alphabet animation to substitute Greek letters for the equivalent English
sound. If desired, you can invite volunteers to write their own odes in Greek
letters on the board and let the class practice reading those.
Extending the Lesson
This lesson can be extended in three different directions, depending on which
of the lesson's themes you choose to emphasize.
If you want to emphasize the relevance of the Greek alphabet, this lesson
can be used as a segue into the EDSITEment curricular unit The
Alphabet is Historic. The unit traces the evolution of modern Roman lettering
from the Greek and Phoenician alphabets. While the lessons in the unit are
designed for students in grades K-2, the basic question, "Where does our alphabet
come from?" will likely interest students in grades 3-5 as well.
Alternatively, if you want to more deeply explore the question of how cultures
commemorate heroic feats, this lesson may serve as an introduction to to Portrait
of a Hero, a K-2 lesson which may adapted for older students.
Finally, if you want to more carefully consider comparisons and contrasts
between the ancient and modern Olympics, this lesson can serve as a companion
to Live
from Ancient Olympia!
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