Olympia horse-racing track found

GREECE: German archaeologists using radar technology believe they may have discovered the ancient horse-racing track at Olympia where Roman emperor Nero bribed his way to Olympic laurels.

The whereabouts of the racecourse is one of the last remaining mysteries of Olympia, the holy site where the ancient Greeks founded the Olympic Games in the eighth century BC.

The one-kilometre-long course, the largest structure of ancient Olympia, has been lost for more than 1,600 years since the Christian emperor Theodosius abolished the games because of their pagan past.

"By means of geomagnetic investigation ... the first clear indications of the localisation of the Hippodrome were found," said Norbert Muller of the Johannes Gutenburg University Mainz.

German archaeological teams have been continuously excavating at Olympia since 1875 but the race course has remained hidden by several metres of silt on the floodplain of the Alfeios river.

In the second century AD, the travel writer Pausanias described the location of the track, detailing its unusual starting mechanism and the dangers for charioteers who were often injured at its sharp turn.

In May, researchers led by Muller and Reinhard Senff of the German Archaeological Institute in Athens explored the plain with modern geomagnetic methods for the first time.

- (Reuters)

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times