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Aristid D. Burke, Sc.D
Private Individual
07/06/02
The friends of Hellenic Studies
To whom it may concern:
It has been recently proposed that record of the victors of the Olympic games, from their inception in 776 BC to the present and beyond, be perpetuated by the exection of an appropriate monument at Olympic, Greece. I believe this proposal has great merit.
First, there is no similar monument extant, endowed with due permanence, stature and Worldwide visibility that serves as a central repository of Olympic feats of the modern era. And what exists of the ancients – inscriptions on statues, tables and ceramic vases – is scattered in museums, archeological sites and libraries.
Second such an undertaking is unique human competitive endeavors in that the criteria used in selecting the Olympic winners are, with few exceptions, concrete, and measurable. In contact even Nobel prize winners in sciences are selected on the basic of the subjective judgments of a committee.
Third, the proposed memorial would be eminently suitable and helpful as part of a movement to reorient the Olympic games away from the current rampant commercialism and the dominance of the professional athletes, toward a restoration of the purity of the Olympic spirit of the amateur athlete and the revival of the observance of a truse among warring parties while the games are in progress.
Finally, based on reasons too obvious to stare I can think of no better alternative to Olympia as the proposed site.
There are, of course, many problems that have to be solved before the proposal is implemented. But none, I believe, serious enough to hinder the realization of such a meritorious idea.
Aristid D. Berk,
Sc.D.