Ancient Olympia

"Anyone who has experienced a wild winter storm in the Alpheios valley and seen the sky resplendent with blinding lightning, or who has deen startled by a sudden mighty thunderclap on a stifling summer's day, will have no reason to doubt that this isolated part of the western Peloponnese is indeed the most important Sanctuary of Zeus, wielder of thunderbolts and father of the Gods."

Klaus Herrmann

"Olympia. The sanctuary and the contests"
Mind and Body, Athens 198

One of the most important sanctuaries of antiquity, dedicated to the father of the gods Olympian Zeus. Olympia is the birth-place of the Olympic Games and also where they were held. 

The ancient Olympic Games began in the year 776 BC, when Koroibos, a cook from the nearby city of Elis, won the stadion race, a foot race 600 feet long. Although the ancient Games were staged in Olympia, Greece, from 776 BC through 393 AD, it took 1503 years for the Olympics to return. The ancient Olympic Games, part of a major religious festival honoring Zeus, the chief Greek god, were the biggest event in their world. They were the scene of political rivalries between people from different parts of the Greek world, and the site of controversies, boasts, public announcements and humiliations. The ancient Greeks were architectural innovators. The temple of Zeus, designed by the architect Libon, was one of the largest Doric temples built in Greece. Libon tried to build the temple in an ideal system of proportions, so that the distance between the columns was harmoniously proportional to their height, and the other architectural elements were sized proportionately as well.

The excavations at Olympia were begun in May 1829, two years after the battle of Navarino, by. French archaeologists. The finds (metopes from the opisthodomus and parts of the metopes from the pronaos of the Temple of Zeus) were transferred to the Louvre where they are still being exhibited. When the Greek government was informed of the looting of artifacts, the excavation was stopped. Excavations started again 45 years later by German archaeologists. The research is being continued to this day by the German Institute of Archaeology in Athens, and the Ephorate of Antiquities in Olympia.