This Just In: Greece Is Loaning 100 Artefacts to Brisbane for the Upcoming Olympics
The 2032 Olympic Games will include an ode to the event's history thanks to this landmark exhibition.
Australia's upcoming third Olympic Games will host a major showcase of Olympic history, as Neos Kosmos reports that over 100 artefacts will be loaned to Australia by the Hellenic Republic for a record-breaking cultural exhibition attached to the 2032 Olympic Games.
Greece hasn't offered a loan of Olympic artefacts to Australia since the 2000 Sydney Olympic and Paralympic Games. That loan was half the size of this upcoming collection, which will detail the thousands of years of history attached to the games and their original home city of Olympia.
Olympia originally started the Olympic Games in the eighth century BC as a tribute to Zeus. They were held there for centuries, and it wasn't until 393 AD that they ended, when Roman Emperor Theodosius I, a devout Christian, outlawed the practice of so-called "pagan" faiths and practices in the empire, which by then included Greece.
The ruins of Olympia — Holger Uwe Schmitt via Wikimedia Commons
The games would eventually restart in Europe in the 19th century, and the ruins of Olympia were excavated in 1874 by a German archaeologist, unveiling thousands of artefacts — many of which will touch down in Australia for the first time as part of this exhibition.
According to Olympic Historian David M. Pritchard, this will be the largest Olympic exhibition ever held outside Greece and could attract over 750,000 visitors during the games. But what is specifically included in the collection? Writing for Neos Kosmos, Pritchard mentions ancient sporting equipment, military trophies, statues of victors, artwork depicting chariot races and combat events and a number of artefacts taken from Olympia's Temple of Zeus itself.
Pritchard is working alongside Greek and Australian organisers to design the exhibition in full, which will open as part of the rest of the Brisbane Olympic Games in 2032. While we can't say exactly where or when the exhibit will open, any Olympic attendees should bookmark it for a cultural escape from the sporting highlights.
Lead image: Jebulon via Wikimedia Commons and the Museum of Athens.
