You may be wondering what the mascot is that you've seen during NBC's coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
They are little animated hats -- Phrygian caps to be precise. And they have historical significance both in France and the U.S.
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Olympic organizers say their mission with the Paris 2024 mascots was to lead a revolution through sports, so with history as their guide, the Phrygian cap was the obvious choice.
They say history is always repeating itself. This is the newest rendition of the Phrygian cap -- the Olympic Phryge and the Paralympic Phryge. They are the two official mascots of the 2024 Paris Games.
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"As a historian, I love the idea that we're looking back to this kind of obscure symbol today," said Ethan Lasser, the chair of Art of the Americas Department at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. " This is an ancient red cap with a deep history."
Lasser says the Phrygian cap originated in ancient Greece and Rome -- known as the headgear of a formerly enslaved person.
"Like many ancient forms, it comes back into circulation in the kind of 17th and 18th century, first in France."
The cap served as a symbol of liberty around the time of the French Revolution. To this day, you can find it on French stamps and carved into town halls. But you don't have to go all the way to France to see this symbolic imagery.
"You know, we think of the American flag today. But in the early period, as a period of revolution, the period of 1776, the liberty cap...is one of the great symbols of our country."
A 1790 statue of Lady Liberty on display at the Museum of Fine Arts shows a liberty cap on top of a staff. There's also Paul Revere's liberty bowl -- made in response to an unpopular British tax policy.
"That bowl is a famous work of protest and commemoration. And in celebration of that act of protest, out of defiance, this bowl is made with the liberty cap," Lasser said.
All of these examples prove that Phrygian cap is a true, time-tested symbol of liberty -- something known across the world, tying it in perfectly with the Olympic mission.
"It does speak to, I guess, what the Olympics and the world of sport offers, which is access to all," Lasser said. "And shows to me the values that are underpinning this Olympics. Bigger than competition, bigger even than athletic excellence, the values of freedom that are part of our country, too."
As Lasser said, the Olympics represent access to all. And that is especially true with the Paralympic Phryge, which wears a prosthetic running blade -- an intentional move to raise the profile of the Paralympic Games and people with disabilities.
