Museology, Classics and Lies: 3 Case Studies from the Museum of Olympia
Case Study 3: The “Cup of Pheidias”: the dangers of modern archaeologists’ interactions with the past, modern graffiti mutating ancient truth, and plain-out lies.
In the 1954–1958 season at Olympia, a student archaeologist was excavating in the Workshop of Pheidias and came across an unseemly ceramic oinochoe, a wine cup. Other examples of oinochoe had been found before, some even with inscriptions. This didn’t have any — nothing special. But then the student had a cunning idea that would change the course of history for that object, and the future of museology.
The Workshop of Pheidias is located just east of the Temple of Zeus. Pheidias asked the Eleans in 432BCE to make a working space for him that had the same dimensions and orientation as the cella in the temple of Zeus, so that he could build the colossal chryselephantine statue of Zeus (one of the ancient seven wonders of the world!) as if in situ. Today, most of its remains are beneath a later Byzantine church; but the ground plan of the original workshop is still clear. This workshop (foreshadowing of new events in the Classics Society!) is attributed to him based on the dimensions, and ivory fragments and ceramic moulds that were found here, which were used to create the clothes of the chryselephantine statue.
It was natural to find drinking cups in the workshop: workers had to stay hydrated. But what was not natural, was the inscription that the student miraculously found and ran to show the main archaeologist. You can imagine the stunned silence before the amazing uproar. ΦΕΙΔΙΟ ΕΙΜΙ, it said. (Mind you, no rough breathing!) Literally, “I am of Pheidias”. This was the cup that Pheidias drank out of.
The finds were immediately published everywhere, from the press all the way to reliable and scholarly sources (eg the American Journal of Archaeology: Vanderpool, Eugene. “News Letter from Greece.” American Journal of Archaeology 63, no. 3 (1959): 279–83). It became an international success and people were stunned by the all-too-good-to-be-true discovery. Research papers mentioned it and enthusiastic visitors probably paid a bit too much money to take a glimpse of it.
The horrid irony was that, the student had written the words himself.
How can you tell? Four ways: first, since an archaeology student, not an epigraphy student, wrote it, no such handwriting/epigraphic style has been found in the Greek world. Secondly, a rookie mistake: most of us learn Attic Greek — so did that student, and he wrote it in the Attic dialect, instead of the Elean dialect in which it would most probably have been written (the cup appears to be a local product). The cup is an outlier among the many other examples of writing on similar vases found (that are on display): while this is written in a straight line and a half across the centre of the base, all the others either have the inscription written on the bottom in a curve following the edge of the base, or are on the pot’s sides near the bottom. Finally, the style, material and decoration of the cup, from the second half of the 5th century, postdates Pheidias’ time at Olympia (in the middle of the fifth century).
A joke gone awfully wrong? Punishable, but if admitted, corrigible and redeemable. Lesson learnt. But for the lead archaeologists to play along with this story for the publicity in the news and research? Blatant, full-out lies that deals a big blow to the integrity and ethics, evidence and study of the Classics.
We have seen that this lie was immediately spread into the news and popular culture, thus creating a popular but incorrect imagination that is not easy to dispel. Once you have found such a rare cup that seems so tantalisingly close to belong to Pheidias, would you (or your subconscience) really want to discredit it? Clearly, no one: the TripAdvisor and Wikipedia pages on Pheidias, right down to old scholarly papers to current doctors (see Brown University’s https://www.brown.edu/academics/archaeology/publications/olympia) all glorify the famous cup. Sadly, it will be hard to convince people of the (much less impressive) truth of that cup. Who knows, it might just have been Pheidias’ cup, but it is unlikely and we have no way of knowing. This is always a problem facing the Classics: overall, just a fraction of the evidence, and of that evidence, most of it is common and boring artefacts— in the face of the fundamental role of the Classics in defining Western civilisation. On the scholarly side, another depressing aspect was that people were actually using this modern graffito to date the cup to its original context. Really does sound like an evolving Euripidean tragedy.
But the worst part of this already ugly tragedy is that this misinformation has poisoned even the primary source of information for this cup, for people ranging from first-time visitors to renowned scholars: the museum information itself.
Just process this: the museum, which should officially represent the culmination of knowledge about the artefact, deliberately hides the facts and creates a more “pleasing” explanation even when it knows the truth. Now that hurts. The audacity harms not just feelings, but harms the reputation of Classical scholarship. The symbolic and, for many tourists, actual source of information for the cup willingly lies and propagates false news. Especially in the world of today, this needs to end.
Though it was a very serious offence, it was not at all unprecedented. The student was following in the footsteps of Schliemann and so many other romantic travellers in the 18th and 19th centuries. Schliemann was notorious for toying with the remains to enhance their and his reputation: apart from arbitrarily baptising tholos tombs with the names Clytemnestra, Atreus and Aegisthos with no archaeological evidence at all, and blowing up huge sections of Troy to reach what he wanted while neglecting anything earlier (and karma did come back to haunt him as he eventually blew up the Homeric Troy he so desperately looked for), he also (literally) fabricated the famous Jewels of Helen “found” at Troy, and re-assigned the identification of the “Deathmask of Agamemnon” when he found an aesthetically better-looking mask. But that does not forgive the student. His falsification promoted inaccurate and manipulative archaeology, allowed his present emotions to skew the past, and undermined what the Germans at Olympia had tried so hard to do: distance themselves from the subjective archaeology of Schliemann and perform a “scientific”, “world-archaeology” in the most objective way possible.
Thus, the museum is willingly promoting misinformation. For less than noble purposes — is it just for the show and to attract tourists and their money. Or is it just sheer ignorance? This last case study gives us an insight into how modern archaeologists and scholars will impose their own visions, deliberately alter the past and blatantly lie about Classical archaeology, which reflects our darker impulses to believe and propagate this fabricated but seductive story— and how often these lies go unnoticed both willingly and unwillingly. I mean, for goodness sake, even the museum shop sells postcards of the cup!
But happily, a few, select group of people did have the courage and sense to challenge this all-too-good-to-be-true claim. And often in sensible and hilarious ways. The very astute Reddit user badassbunny four years ago cleverly asked along the right track: “How do they know it is THE Phidias and not some other guy named Phidias?”, to which he was shut down by the boring, poorly expressed and incorrect answer: “It was found in the building at Olympia that housed the workshop that created the statue of Zeus. In the smae [sic] buildinf [sic] they found discarded sculptors tools and ivory fragments and debris, so it seems that it belonged to the sculptor himself. Also, the name is pretty uncommon in ancient greece [sic].” LucretiusCarus, I think you only got 1 point on that for a reason.
Concluding Thoughts: How can we ensure correct and accurate information is provided, and how can we improve the visitor’s experience in museums?
As you walk out of the Olympia museum, you look onto a slightly mucky, white square that has colonnades on four sides: sort of like a four stoas around a courtyard. It’s styled on a peristyle, or a peristasis (temple peristyle), to elevate the entrance’s nature. Or perhaps a dirty, ugly, modern superimposition and appropriation of a Greek architectural concept, divorced from its original function. This again very aptly summarises some of the experiences inside the museum. On a whole, you are impressed with the famous Miltiades helmet and the gold Persian helmet, like the general conformity of the white courtyard to a Greek peristyle; but you may be worried by the lack of accuracy and commitment to the ancient world, clear in the ugly outcome of the peristyle. In some cases, you see modern people imposing their own preconceptions when trying to recreate the ancient world. Some go noticed, but all too many go unnoticed. It is the Classicists’, scholars’, and philosophers’ duty to allow people to recognise these problems, so that they can understand what reasons drives such decisions, how the role of the history of the Classics influences this, and ultimately ways we are remedying this and improving our discipline.
This article serves as a plea to all scholars to verify your information always and not spread incorrect, inaccurate information simply, because you are too lazy to check up on it (I hope I haven’t done any of that myself; if I did please correct me!). This is much more common than you think: many prominent historians and archaeologists have published generalisations about ancient Greek culture which countless archaeological rescue digs prove incorrect. A prominent example: it is very common to find in secondary literature that burials only happened outside the city walls, for example at the Kerameikos in Athens. Countless rescue excavations (even conducted by the Assistant Director of the BSA Chryssanthi herself!) have shown that some people did follow a trend of burying their dead in their back gardens, to keep them close for sentimental value and stop them being destroyed when new mourners destroyed old graves to make space for new ones. To verify their claims, scholars should always put in the effort to read and analyse carefully all resources: for Classical Greek archaeologists, to scrutinise the archaeological excavations and reports which are published yearly, such as the BSA Archaeological Records which can be found on JSTOR and the more comprehensive AGOnline (http://www.chronique.efa.gr/), which Chryssanthi also summarises and translates from the Greek in the Archaiologikon Deltion (the most recent excavation reports from Greece).
As Classicists, this is an opportunity to step back and reflect on how we can make a positive difference to every area in our discipline.
As I walked away from the museum into the town as evening breezed down, and walked through the shops filled with shirts and vases be-speckled with the temple of Zeus, the Olympic stadium and Praxiteles’ Hermes — and many tavernas exhibiting their souvlaki made from both ancient recipes — I realised that I was leaving one truth behind and entering another in the modern town. In a way they are very similar, both museums exhibiting the glory of their past and present (like the museum-temple of Hera). The modern Greeks are in a constant flux between different identities, old and new, foreign and Greek. It is fascinating. But what I noticed then and there, is that it serves beautifully as a model for thinking about how we can prevent such high-minded men from distorting our perceptions of the past in the future.
How? When I went to the counter to buy my shirt with the first seven lines of the Iliad in Greek (!), and started to have a long conversation with the man about the Iliad in ancient Greek, it hit me. We can gain so many more, diverse viewpoints by having discussions with the modern Greeks’ and other nationalities’ experience of their heritage. By having these conversations, as I did with the shirt seller, we can foster close connections and mutual, educated understanding focused on accurately illustrating and learning from the past. We can use this constructive and diverse consensus to replace the Classical-minded perspective of the past century with one that marvels at the past as it is and strives to reach the “truth” of the past through collaborative efforts in every situation. Museology will then transcend just displaying objects and will educate everyone on epistemological questions about the past, the Classics and ultimately ourselves.
Perhaps even we will be remembered as a speckle in time for this small idea that we contribute, just as the idea of setting the first statue in the temple of Hera gave birth to a museum and turned it into the cultural icon of their civilisation (and ours) it is today.
A very big thank you to Dr Chryssanthi Papadopoulou, Dr Estelle Strazdins and Dr Matthew Skuse for their lectures in situ and their inspiring roles on the BSA 2018 course. Another big thank you goes to Leah for superbly explaining the concept of Hellenistic sculpture as in Hermes’ Praxiteles. This is for BSA 2018!
If you are interested to learn more about the Archaeology of Ancient Greece and its sanctuaries, here is are some clear and thorough starting places, (one written by the very man who was once the director of the BSA!):
Camp, John. The Archaeology of Athens. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
Emerson, Mary. Greek Sanctuaries & Temple Architecture: An Introduction. 2nd ed. London: Bloomsbury, 2018.
Whitley, James. The Archaeology of Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge World Archaeology, 2001.
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