NEMEA 2008 Ancient Greeks Celebrated Festivals(part I)

Nemea and Modern Nemea
The ancient Greeks celebrated festivals at Nemea that were part of the cycle of games at Delphi, Isthmia, and (best known today) Olympia. At each of these four sites in rotation, for a brief period each year, wars and hostilities were suspended by a sacred truce, and all Greeks - Spartans and Athenians, Corinthians and Argives, Macedonians and Cretans - gathered in recognition of their common humanity. This impulse toward peace - al¬beit limited to a few days each year - was the first in the history of mankind on an organized, regular, and inter¬national scale. Thus, the ancient festivals at Nemea, Olympia, Delphi, and Isthmia are the direct ancestors of today's Olympic Games as well as of the United Na¬tions.
The Society for the Revival of the Nemean Games (which now has more than 2200 members from around the world) was founded in the belief that there is today scope and perhaps even need for the average person - regard¬less of ethnicity, language, religion, gender, age, or ath¬letic ability - to participate in an international athletic festival. And so it happened in the three past Nemeads. More than 1800 people from 45 different countries, ranging in age from 5 to 97, added their footprints to those of ages long ago while more than 10000 spectators looked on.
No records were kept and no medals were awarded, families with picnics on the slopes of the stadium were as much a part of the festival as the runners. Races were organized by gender and age, and were interspersed with music and dance. All the participants ran bare¬foot and in ancient tunics which they put on in the an¬cient locker room. And they entered the stadium through the same tunnel where athletes passed in the 4th century B.C. They started from the same stone line and with the same starting mechanism, and the win¬ners received the same initial tokens of victory - a rib¬bon tied around the head and a palm branch, and at the end of the day the victors received the same crown of wild celery that was the ephemeral symbol of victory at the ancient Nemean Games. But at the same time, all the participants were rewarded with feet sore from contact with the same earth where ancient feet ran more than 2,000 years ago - and by the knowledge that they had been in direct physical contact with an ancient idea, an ancient spirit that still lives in the earth of Nemea.
The fourth Nemead will take place on June 21, 22 2008 and all who would share in that idea and that spirit are invited to participate.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Nemea
• and
• Modern
• festivals

[lc8ergr1]

YPARXEI

PART II???

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Yparxei alla yparxoun episis techica problimata lian syntomos omos....:)!

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poli kalo!

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apisteyto FOVERO video

BRAVO!!!