In striking contrast to the vertiginous mountain cliffs of the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi or the sheer limestone citadel of the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens, the Sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia rests in a tranquil, sun-dappled alluvial valley shaded by Aleppo pines, wild olives, holm oaks, and white poplars in the region of Elis in the western Peloponnese. Bordered on the north by the wooded cone of Mount Kronios (the hill of the Titan Kronos, father of Zeus), on the south by the broad waters of the Alpheios River, and on the west by the tributary stream of the Kladeos, this walled sanctuary precinct was known to the ancient Greeks simply as the Altis (an Eleian dialect form of alsos, meaning the Sacred Grove).
For nearly twelve centuries between 776 BCE and 393 CE, Olympia was never a residential city-state, but rather the foremost Panhellenic Sanctuary of the Greek-speaking world, serving as the shared spiritual hearth where dispersed city-states reaffirmed their common ancestry, language, and religious kinship in a manner deeply resonant with East Asian traditions of ancestral and founder veneration. Every four years at the midsummer full moon, warring Greek states laid down their arms under the Sacred Truce (Ekecheiria) so that athletes, statesmen, philosophers, and tens of thousands of pilgrims could gather beneath the Doric columns of the Temple of Zeus to offer sacrifice and compete for a simple wreath of wild olive leaves cut with a golden sickle from the sacred tree behind the temple.
IZeus Olympios, Phidias's Seven-Wonder Chryselephantine Statue, and the Ancestral Hero Pelops
Within the sacred enclosure of the Altis, three intertwined layers of worship evolved from prehistoric antiquity into the Classical era. The earliest stratum along the southern foot of Mount Kronios honored primordial earth and fertility goddesses including Gaia, Themis, Eileithyia, and above all Hera, queen of heaven and consort of Zeus, whose monumental Temple of Hera (the Heraion) stood from around 600 BCE. The second stratum centered on the ancestral hero Pelops at the Bronze Age tumulus enclosure of the Pelopion: celebrated by the poet Pindar in his First Olympian Ode, the Lydian prince Pelops defeated King Oenomaus of Pisa in a legendary chariot race here to win the hand of Princess Hippodamia, giving his name to the entire peninsula of the Peloponnese (the Island of Pelops) and establishing funeral games along the banks of the Alpheios.
Towering over all was the worship of Zeus Olympios, sovereign father of gods and mortals, lord of the sky and thunderbolt, guarantor of sacred oaths (Zeus Horkios), and protector of strangers and suppliants (Zeus Xenios). Whereas civic temples in individual poleis invoked deities for partisan victory, at Olympia Zeus was venerated as the impartial supreme father of all Hellenes.
In classical Greek religious thought, the athletic contests at Olympia were never mere secular entertainment; they were a liturgical offering of human physical and moral excellence (Arete) dedicated to Zeus. Combining bodily grace with noble character under the ideal of Kalokagathia, every athlete, accompanied by his father, brothers, and trainers, was required to stand before the dread bronze statue of Zeus Horkios (Zeus of the Oaths, holding a thunderbolt in each hand inside the Bouleuterion council hall) over the severed flesh of a sacrificed boar and swear a solemn oath that he had trained rigorously for ten full months and would commit no fraud or bribery in the games.
Victors at Olympia received no cash prize from the judges, only the Kotinos: a branch woven from the sacred wild olive tree (Kallistephanos) that Heracles himself had brought from the land of the Hyperboreans and planted behind the Temple of Zeus. To be crowned with the wild olive wreath inside the Temple of Zeus while the herald proclaimed one's name, one's father's name, and one's native city before the assembled Greek world was regarded as the highest felicity a mortal could attain.
The crowning glory that placed the Temple of Zeus at Olympia among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World was the colossal chryselephantine (gold-and-ivory) Statue of Zeus created around 435 to 430 BCE by the Athenian master sculptor Phidias (immediately after he completed the Athena Parthenos for the Parthenon in Athens). Detailed eyewitness accounts by the traveler Pausanias (Description of Greece, Book V, chapter 11) and the geographer Strabo record that the seated figure of Zeus rose more than 12.4 meters (roughly 40 feet) high, nearly brushing the coffered ceiling beams, prompting Strabo's famous remark that if the god were to rise from his throne, he would unroof the temple.
The exposed flesh of the god was formed of finely joined plates of ivory, while his mantle, sandals, and olive-crowned locks were wrought of hammered gold inlaid with enameled lilies and figures. In his outstretched right hand Zeus held a life-size gold-and-ivory statue of winged Victory (Nike), and in his left hand he grasped a scepter inlaid with every precious metal and surmounted by a golden eagle. The massive throne of ebony, ivory, gold, and gemstones was adorned with sculpted reliefs of the children of Niobe and painted mythic panels executed by Phidias's nephew Panaenus. Because the humid marsh air of the Alpheios valley threatened to warp the ivory plates over time, Phidias ingeniously sunk a shallow reflecting basin paved in dark Eleusinian limestone bordered with white Parian marble directly in front of the statue base and filled it with olive oil, which simultaneously preserved the ivory from drying or cracking and reflected golden light upward onto the majestic countenance of the god.
Visitors to Olympia frequently assume that the modern ceremony of kindling the Olympic Flame from the rays of the sun takes place on the steps of the great Temple of Zeus. In reality, since the inauguration of the modern Olympic Torch Relay in 1936, the High Priestess kindles the flame using a parabolic mirror directly before the outdoor altar of the older Temple of Hera (the Heraion) on the northern edge of the Altis, where the archaic Doric columns still stand and where archaeologists unearthed Praxiteles's famous marble statue of Hermes and the Infant Dionysus in 1877. Likewise, in antiquity the eternal flame of Olympia burned not inside the Temple of Zeus, but upon the hearth altar of the goddess Hestia inside the Prytaneion magistrates' hall at the northwest corner of the sanctuary.
IINearly Twelve Centuries from the Truce of 776 BCE to Modern German Excavations
Excavations by the German Archaeological Institute at Olympia have uncovered apsidal Bronze Age buildings and thousands of geometric bronze and terracotta figurines of charioteers, bulls, and tripods dating back to the tenth and ninth centuries BCE. According to the victor lists compiled in the fifth century BCE by Hippias of Elis, in the year 776 BCE King Iphitos of Elis, the Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus, and King Cleosthenes of Pisa followed the counsel of the Delphic Oracle to inscribe the Sacred Truce upon a bronze discus (which Aristotle personally inspected in the Temple of Hera) and celebrated the first recorded quadrennial Olympic Games, in which a local cook named Coroebus of Elis won the sole event, the stadion footrace of 192.27 meters. From that date forward, the four-year interval between games, the Olympiad, became the universal chronological backbone of Greek historiography.
Remarkably, for the first three centuries of the Olympic Games, Zeus was worshipped in the open air around his great ash altar without a dedicated temple. Only in 470 BCE, after the city-state of Elis defeated neighboring Pisa and amassed rich spoils of war, did the Eleians commission the native architect Libon of Elis to raise a monumental Doric temple to Zeus, completed in 456 BCE.
- 2nd millennium to 10th century BCEPrehistoric shrines beneath Mount Kronios and the hero cult of PelopsEarly sanctuaries honor primordial earth deities and the Bronze Age Pelopion tumulus, followed by tenth-century BCE geometric votive offerings of bronze tripods and figurines to Zeus.
- 776 BCE and circa 600 BCEFirst recorded Olympic Games and construction of the Temple of Hera (Heraion)In 776 BCE Coroebus of Elis wins the stadion race at the first recorded Olympiad. Around 600 BCE the people of Skillous dedicate the Temple of Hera, the oldest monumental peripteral Doric temple at Olympia.
- 470 to 456 BCEArchitect Libon of Elis builds the canonical Doric Temple of ZeusThe largest temple in the Peloponnese is constructed of local shell limestone coated in white marble stucco and adorned with Parian marble pediments. In 457 BCE Sparta places a golden shield on the east gable after the Battle of Tanagra.
- Circa 438 to 430 BCEPhidias creates the gold-and-ivory Statue of Zeus in his custom workshopWorking in a purpose-built studio just west of the Altis that replicated the exact dimensions of the temple cella, Phidias and his assistants craft the 12.4-meter seated Statue of Zeus.
- 338 BCE to 2nd century CEDedication of the circular Philippeion and Roman imperial patronageAfter the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BCE, King Philip II of Macedon begins the circular Philippeion (completed by Alexander the Great). During the Roman era, Augustus, Nero, and the benefactor Herodes Atticus (who built the grand Nymphaeum aqueduct in 160 CE) expand the sanctuary.
- 393 CE and 426 CEAbolition of the ancient Olympic Games after 293 Olympiads and temple destructionIn 393 CE Emperor Theodosius I bans pagan festivals after 1,169 years of uninterrupted Olympic Games. Phidias's statue is carried to the Palace of Lausus in Constantinople (where it perishes in a fire in 475 CE), and in 426 CE Theodosius II orders the dismantling of the Altis temples.
- 522 and 551 CETwin earthquakes topple the columns of the Temple of ZeusMassive earthquakes in 522 and 551 CE bring down the giant columns of the Temple of Zeus in aligned rows of drums, which are subsequently buried under four to five meters of alluvial silt from the Kladeos and Alpheios rivers.
- 1829, 1875, and 1989French Morea Expedition, German excavations under Ernst Curtius, and UNESCO statusFrench scholars locate the Temple of Zeus in 1829; beginning in 1875 Ernst Curtius and the German Archaeological Institute excavate the entire sanctuary and its sculptures. In 1989 UNESCO inscribes Olympia as a World Heritage Site.
The archaeological discovery of Phidias's Workshop and the sculptor's signed mug. Just outside the western wall of the Altis stands a fifth-century BCE stone-and-brick hall that was converted into an early Christian basilica in the fifth century CE. In the second century CE, Pausanias recorded that this building was the original Workshop of Phidias, built to the exact width, length, and lighting orientation of the cella of the Temple of Zeus so that the sculptor could assemble and test the sections of his colossal gold-and-ivory statue before installing them in the temple. When German archaeologists led by Wolfgang Schiering and Alfred Mallwitz excavated the ancient floor layers beneath the Christian church between 1954 and 1958, they unearthed terracotta molds used to cast glass-paste drapery folds, ivory offcuts, bronze-working tools, and, at the bottom of the workshop refuse layer, a small black-glazed Athenian ribbed drinking mug from the 430s BCE. Scratched neatly into the underside of the mug's base in fifth-century Greek letters were two words: Pheidio eimi (I belong to Phidias). Preserved today in the Archaeological Museum of Olympia, this personal vessel offers tangible proof of the master sculptor's presence at Olympia as he shaped one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
IIILibon's Canonical Doric Temple of Zeus, the Heraion, the Philippeion, and the 45,000-Seat Stadium
In the history of classical architecture, if the Parthenon in Athens represents a daring synthesis of Doric and Ionic elements on an eight-column front, the Temple of Zeus at Olympia designed by Libon of Elis (470 to 456 BCE) stands as the textbook canon of the hexastyle peripteral Doric temple. Raised upon a three-stepped platform whose stylobate measures 64.12 meters long by 27.68 meters wide, the temple is surrounded by a colonnade of 6 columns across the eastern and western facades and 13 columns along the northern and southern flanks. All 34 exterior columns rose to a height of 10.43 meters (a column height later adopted verbatim by Ictinus for the Parthenon) with massive lower diameters of 2.21 to 2.25 meters.
Because Elis lacked native marble quarries, Libon constructed the entire superstructure from local fossiliferous shell limestone (poros) coated in a fine, gleaming white marble stucco, reserving imported Parian marble for the roof tiles, lion-head water spouts, the twelve sculpted metopes of the porches, and the two monumental pedimental compositions.
The largest temple in the Peloponnese (64.12 by 27.68 meters; in 2004 one full northwest column was re-erected to its 10.43-meter height). Its two Parian marble pediments (now displayed in the Olympia Museum) are the supreme masterpieces of the Early Classical Severe Style (circa 460 BCE): the East Pediment captures the tense stillness before the chariot race between Pelops and King Oenomaus with Zeus standing at the center, while the West Pediment explodes with the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs at the wedding of Peirithoos, presided over by the calm figure of Apollo. Above the inner porches, 12 marble metopes depict the Twelve Labors of Heracles.
Standing at the northern foot of Mount Kronios, the Heraion (50.01 by 18.76 meters, 6 by 16 Doric columns) is one of the oldest monumental peripteral temples in Greece. Originally built with oak columns that were gradually replaced with stone shafts over several centuries, its surviving columns display an instructive chronological evolution of Doric capitals from archaic to Roman times. Here Praxiteles's marble statue of Hermes was discovered in 1877, and before its eastern altar the modern Olympic Flame is kindled.
Between the temples of Zeus and Hera lies the pentagonal walled enclosure of the Pelopion (where a black ram was sacrificed annually to the hero Pelops) beside the site of the Great Altar of Zeus, a colossal mound formed entirely of the calcified ashes of sacrificial thighbones mixed with water from the Alpheios River. Nearby at the northwest corner stands the circular Philippeion (15.25 meters in diameter), begun by King Philip II of Macedon in 338 BCE with 18 outer Ionic columns and 9 inner engaged Corinthian columns.
Lining the northern terrace steps leading east toward the Stadium stand the 16 stone bases of the Zanes, bronze statues of Zeus cast entirely from fines levied on athletes caught cheating or bribing opponents. Just beyond, athletes and judges passed through the 32-meter stone-vaulted tunnel (the Krypte) onto the open floor of the Olympic Stadium: a running track 212.54 meters long by 28.5 meters wide whose marble starting and finishing sills (balbides) are spaced exactly 192.27 meters apart (one Olympic stadion of 600 feet of Heracles), surrounded by grassy earthen embankments accommodating 45,000 spectators.
West of the Altis along the Kladeos stream lie the athletic training complexes: the third-century BCE Palaestra (a 66-meter-square peristyle courtyard surrounded by Doric colonnades, anointing rooms, and cold baths for wrestlers and boxers) and the adjacent Gymnasium (whose covered eastern portico measured a full stadion in length for indoor running practice). To the southwest stands the Leonidaion (74 by 80 meters), a grand courtyard guesthouse donated around 330 BCE by Leonidas of Naxos for distinguished visitors.
South of the Temple of Zeus stands the Bouleuterion (comprising two apsidal wings flanking the square shrine of Zeus Horkios where athletes swore the Olympic oath), while to the west rises the brick-and-stone Workshop of Phidias. Immediately southeast of the temple facade rises the 9-meter triangular marble pillar that supported the soaring winged Nike sculpted by Paionios of Mende in 421 BCE.
| Monument or Masterpiece | Date and Architect or Sculptor | Key Architectural and Historical Specifications |
|---|---|---|
| Temple of Zeus (Naos tou Dios) | 470 to 456 BCE (Architect Libon of Elis) | Stylobate 64.12 by 27.68 m, canonical Doric 6 by 13 columns (height 10.43 m, base diameter 2.25 m); Parian marble East and West Pediments and 12 Heracles metopes |
| Chryselephantine Statue of Zeus | Circa 435 to 430 BCE (Sculptor Phidias of Athens) | Seated gold-and-ivory figure approx. 12.4 m tall behind an Eleusinian black-stone olive-oil basin; one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World |
| Temple of Hera (Heraion) | Circa 600 to 590 BCE (dedicated by Skillous) | Stylobate 50.01 by 18.76 m, Doric 6 by 16 columns; findspot of the Hermes of Praxiteles and site of the modern Olympic Flame lighting ceremony |
| Ancient Olympic Stadium (Stadion) | 6th to 5th century BCE (present form circa 350 BCE) | Total arena 212.54 by 28.5 m; distance between starting sills exactly 192.27 m (1 stadion); earthen embankments for 45,000 spectators |
| Circular Philippeion and Workshop of Phidias | 338 BCE (Philip II) and 435 BCE (Workshop of Phidias) | Philippeion diameter 15.25 m with Ionic and Corinthian columns; Workshop of Phidias 32 by 14.5 m matching the exact dimensions of the temple cella |
IVThe Lie of the Land
It should be stated clearly at the outset that ancient Greek religion in Elis did not practice East Asian geomancy (feng shui), siting the sanctuary of Olympia instead around the mythic hill of Kronos, the sacred wild-olive and oak grove of the Altis, and the river confluence associated with the hero Pelops. All three major temples in the Altis (the Temple of Zeus, the Heraion, and the Metroon) adhere strictly to classical Greek sacred orientation, aligned west-to-east so that their main entrances and outdoor altars greet the rising sun. The section below offers a comparative reading of Olympia's river-confluence and hill-backed topography through the Hall of Myriad Paths library's traditional landform framework.
Examining the regional topography of the Eleian valley in the western Peloponnese at coordinates 37.6379 degrees north, 21.6300 degrees east, the Sanctuary of Olympia exemplifies the classical plain-and-valley landform configuration of twin rivers converging before a rounded guardian hill. Immediately bordering the northern boundary of the Altis rises the conical pine-clad peak of Mount Kronios (123 meters above sea level), whose symmetrical, rounded profile corresponds to a harmonious Metal-Earth guardian star in traditional mountain typology, shielding the entire sacred grove from cold northern winds while the raised Terrace of the Treasuries curves along its southern base like an embracing collar.
In terms of watercourses, the lush vitality that distinguishes Olympia from the arid rocky sanctuaries of mainland Greece derives directly from the confluence of two rivers: flowing south along the western flank of the sanctuary (immediately outside the Gymnasium and Palaestra) runs the tributary stream of the Kladeos as a protective Right White Tiger water arm, while along the broad southern valley floor flows the mighty Alpheios River (the longest river of the Peloponnese, rising in the Arcadian highlands), which sweeps westward past the southern front of the Altis to receive the waters of the Kladeos before emptying into the Ionian Sea. In classical water-dragon reading, a level terrace nestled directly inside the embrace where a tributary joins a trunk river is a premier site for gathering and retaining vital energy.
Regarding architectural orientation, the Temple of Zeus stands on firm, slightly elevated ground in the southern half of the Altis along a strict west-to-east axis (angled slightly north of due east toward the midsummer dawn). Its eastern facade and monumental ramp open onto a spacious inner bright hall overlooking the Nike of Paionios and the ceremonial path to the Stadium, while its western rear porch aligns along a single straight axis with the Workshop of Phidias beyond the Kladeos wall, uniting sacred ritual and artistic creation across the valley floor.
VThe Five-Day Ancient Olympic Festival, the Women's Heraia Games, and the Modern Olympic Flame Ceremony
Across 1,169 unbroken years from 776 BCE to 393 CE (spanning 293 consecutive Olympiads), the Panhellenic Olympic Festival (Olympia) was celebrated every four years around the second or third full moon after the summer solstice (in the Eleian month of Apollonios or Parthenios, corresponding to August). Months before the games, three heralds crowned with olive wreaths (Spondophoroi) traveled to every Greek city-state to proclaim the Sacred Truce (Ekecheiria), forbidding any armed force from entering Eleian territory or hindering athletes and pilgrims journeying to Olympia.
Alongside the men's Olympic Games honoring Zeus, Olympia also hosted a separate quadrennial festival exclusively for unmarried women: the Heraia Games honoring the goddess Hera, organized by a college of Sixteen Matrons from the cities of Elis.
| Day or Cycle | Calendar system | Rite or Competition | Liturgical ceremonies and athletic contests at Olympia |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 of the Olympic Festival (August, every four years) | Eleian Lunisolar Calendar (Olympiad Cycle) | Opening Rites, the Olympic Oath before Zeus Horkios, and Trumpeters' Contest | Athletes, fathers, trainers, and purple-robed Eleian judges (Hellanodikai) swear the sacred oath of fair play over sacrificed boar flesh before Zeus Horkios in the Bouleuterion, offer sacrifice at the Pelopion, and hold contests for heralds and trumpeters. |
| Day 2 of the Olympic Festival | Olympiad Cycle | Four-Horse Chariot Races in the Hippodrome and the Pentathlon | Morning equestrian events in the southern Hippodrome feature thrilling four-horse chariot races (tethrippon) and horseback races; afternoon contests in the Stadium feature the five-event Pentathlon (discus, long jump with hand weights, javelin, stadion sprint, and wrestling). |
| Day 3 (Night and Day of the Midsummer Full Moon) | Religious Climax of the Olympiad | Grand Procession and Sacrifice of One Hundred Oxen (Hekatombe) at the Altar of Zeus | Judges, civic ambassadors (Theoroi), and athletes march in solemn procession through the Altis to sacrifice 100 oxen upon the Great Ash Altar of Zeus, followed by boys' footraces in the afternoon and a state banquet in the evening. |
| Day 4 of the Olympic Festival | Olympiad Cycle | Principal Footraces, Heavy Combat Sports, and the Race in Armor | Morning footraces include the stadion (192.27 m), double-length diaulos, and 24-lap dolichos; afternoon heavy combat events feature upright wrestling (pale), leather-thong boxing (pygmachia), all-in Pankration, and the final race of runners carrying bronze helmets, greaves, and shields (hoplitodromos). |
| Day 5 of the Olympic Festival | Olympiad Cycle | Crowning of Victors with the Wild Olive Wreath (Kotinos) and Banquet in the Prytaneion | Olympic victors (Olympionikai) assemble in the vestibule of the Temple of Zeus before Phidias's statue to be crowned with wreaths of sacred wild olive cut with a golden sickle, showered with flowers (phyllobolia), and feasted beside Hestia's eternal flame in the Prytaneion. |
| Every four years (separate from the men's Olympiad) | Eleian Lunisolar Calendar | The Women's Heraia Games and Presentation of the Woven Peplos to Hera | The Sixteen Women of Elis weave a sacred peplos robe for the cult statue of Hera and preside over footraces for unmarried girls in three age classes along a track shortened by one-sixth of a stadion (approx. 160 meters); victors receive olive crowns and a portion of the sacrificial cow. |
| Months prior to every modern Summer and Winter Olympic Games (since 1936) | Modern Gregorian Calendar | Kindling of the Modern Olympic Flame before the Temple of Hera | Under the auspices of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Hellenic Olympic Committee, the High Priestess uses a parabolic mirror before the Altar of Hera to focus the sun's rays and ignite the Olympic Torch, launching the global relay from the ancient Stadium of Olympia. |
The heart of Baron Pierre de Coubertin and the masterpieces of the Olympia Museum. When Baron Pierre de Coubertin (1863 to 1937), founder of the modern Olympic Movement, passed away in Geneva, his heart was brought to Greece in accordance with his last wishes and enshrined inside a marble stele overlooking the International Olympic Academy just east of the ancient Stadium of Olympia. Today, after walking through the vaulted stone tunnel of the Krypte to stand at the marble starting line of the 192.27-meter track, visitors can cross the Kladeos bridge to the Archaeological Museum of Olympia: in its central hall, built to the exact width of the Temple of Zeus, the Parian marble East and West Pediments and twelve Heracles metopes confront one another in full grandeur, surrounded by the Hermes of Praxiteles, the soaring Nike of Paionios, the bronze helmet dedicated by the Athenian general Miltiades after Marathon, and the modest black ceramic mug inscribed by Phidias himself.
VILocation And How To Get There
- Address
- Sanctuary of Altis, Archaeological Site of Olympia, Archaia Olympia 270 65, Elis, Western Greece
- Getting there
- The Sanctuary of Olympia is located in the town of Archaia Olympia in Elis, about 115 kilometers south of the port city of Patras and 290 kilometers west of Athens. From the Kifissos Intercity Bus Terminal in Athens, KTEL Ilia buses run regularly to the regional capital of Pyrgos (about 4 hours), where local buses, taxis, or the regional train from Pyrgos and the cruise port of Katakolon reach Archaia Olympia in 25 minutes, stopping a 10-minute walk from the archaeological site entrance.
- Coordinates
- 37.6379, 21.63
The Archaeological Site of Olympia covers a broad, level valley floor shaded by pines and olive trees, making it comfortable for walking, though sun protection and drinking water are essential during midday summer heat, especially inside the unshaded ancient Stadium. A combined admission ticket grants entry to the Altis archaeological precinct, the Archaeological Museum of Olympia, and the Museum of the History of the Olympic Games in Antiquity. Visitors must respect the protective cordons around the Temple of Zeus and Temple of Hera, but are warmly encouraged to walk through the vaulted Krypte tunnel and run along the earthen track of the ancient Stadium.
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?Quick Questions
Is the Sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia located on Mount Olympus?
No. Mount Olympus (the 2,917-meter mountain peak revered in mythology as the heavenly dwelling of the twelve Olympian gods) is located in northern Greece on the border of Thessaly and Macedonia. By contrast, the Sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia, where the ancient Olympic Games were held, lies in a lush river valley in the region of Elis in the western Peloponnese of southern Greece.
What did Phidias's Statue of Zeus at Olympia look like, and why was there olive oil on the floor in front of it?
Created around 435 BCE by the Athenian sculptor Phidias inside the cella of the Temple of Zeus, the seated gold-and-ivory statue stood over 12.4 meters (40 feet) tall, holding a winged Nike in its right hand and an eagle-topped scepter in its left. To prevent the humid valley air from cracking the ivory plates covering the god's flesh, Phidias built a shallow black Eleusinian limestone basin in front of the throne filled with olive oil, which both preserved the ivory and reflected golden light onto the statue.
What happened to the Statue of Zeus and the Temple of Zeus at Olympia?
After Emperor Theodosius I banned pagan festivals in 393 CE, Phidias's gold-and-ivory statue of Zeus was transported to the Palace of Lausus in Constantinople, where it was destroyed in a great city fire in 475 CE. At Olympia itself, the Temple of Zeus was damaged under Emperor Theodosius II in 426 CE and its giant columns were toppled in rows by two powerful earthquakes in 522 and 551 CE.
How and where is the modern Olympic Flame lit at Olympia today?
Several months before every Summer and Winter Olympic Games, an actress portraying the High Priestess stands before the outdoor altar of the archaic Temple of Hera (Heraion) in the Altis and places the Olympic Torch at the focal point of a parabolic mirror, using the pure rays of the sun to ignite the flame before it is carried into the ancient Stadium to begin the global Torch Relay.
What were the Zanes statues lining the entrance to the Olympic Stadium?
Along the northern terrace steps just before the vaulted tunnel (Krypte) entering the Stadium stand 16 stone pedestals that once supported bronze statues of Zeus called Zanes (the plural of Zeus in the local Eleian dialect). Every one of these bronze statues was paid for with compulsory fines levied on athletes caught cheating, bribing opponents, or violating the Olympic Oath, with inscriptions warning all competitors that Olympic victory could be won only by honorable effort.