Olympia ( ; ), officially Archaia Olympia ( ), is a small town in Elis on the Peloponnese peninsula in Greece, famous for the nearby archaeological site of the same name. The site was a major Panhellenic religious sanctuary of ancient Greece, where the ancient Olympic Games were held every four years throughout classical antiquity, from the 8th centuryBC to the 4th centuryAD. They were restored on a global basis in 1894 in honor of the ideal of peaceful international contention for excellence.
The sacred precinct, named the Altis, was primarily dedicated to Zeus, although other gods were worshipped there. The games conducted in his name drew visitors from all over the Greek world as one of a group of such "Panhellenic" centres, which helped to build the identity of the ancient Greeks as a nation. Despite the name, it is nowhere near Mount Olympus in northern Greece, where the twelve Olympians, the major deities of ancient Greek religion, were believed to live.
Ancient history records that Pisa and Elis, other villages in the region, contended with Olympia for management of the precinct, and that Olympia won, implying that the village was not identical to the precinct. The putative location of the ancient village is the modern village, which appears to have been inhabited continuously since ancient times.
The archaeological site held over 760 significant buildings, and ruins of many of these survive.
Of special interest to Greeks is the Pelopion, tomb of the quasi-mythical king Pelops, who gives his name to the Peloponnese and was ancestor of Agamemnon and Menelaus, the Greek kings of the Trojan War. The tomb suggests that he may not have been entirely mythical.
Another location that has a special interest to both ancients and moderns is the stadium. It is basically a field with start and end lines marked off by transverse curbing. The athletes entered under an archway of a vaulted corridor at the start. Spectators sat mainly on the field's sloping flanks. The length of this field became the standard stadion, an ancient Greek unit of distance, which appears in all the geographers.This unit is more difficult to measure today. There were at least 3 stadiums, termed Stadium I, II, and III. The one remaining is III. One stadion was defined as 600 podes, one pous being the ancient Greek "foot." The length of the foot determined the length of the stadium, but standard feet varied both by intention and accidentally. Stadium III had a length of , which implied a pous of 320.45 mm, close to the 324 of the doric order of architecture. The Doric stadion might therefore be regarded as the original Greek, which seems to have been built on the Luwian pous of 323 mm. The stadium has been resurrected for Olympic use with no intentional alteration of the ancient topography. Temporary stands are easily erected and dismantled.
The first major games at the Olympia stadium were said to have taken place in the 720s BCE. These prestigious ancient games were held during the festival of Zeus. Olympia was a sanctuary, but it was within the independent state of Elis, and since the Eleans managed the games, there was sometimes bias. The famous Olympic truce only mandated safe passage for visitors and did not stop all wars in Greece or even at Olympia.The Oxford Handbook of Sports History, Donald G. Kyle, Page 85
The village services the adjacent archaeological site to the southeast. The Kladeos River forms the site's western border. Visitors walk over the bridge to find themselves in front of the main gate. Visiting the full site requires extensive walking. Excavations are often in progress there. Moveable artifacts from the site are mostly housed in one of the site's three museums.
Ancient site
Architectural summary Olympia lies in the valley of the Alfeiós River (also Anglicized as Alpheus or Alpheios) in the western part of the Peloponnese, today around from the Gulf of Kyparissia in the Ionian Sea, but in antiquity perhaps half that distance."In earlier times, Olympia was not 22 kilometers away from the sea as it is today. Back then, the coastline was located eight or perhaps even more kilometers further inland ..." Professor Dr Andreas Vött of the Institute of Geography of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany.
According to Pausanias, there were over 70 temples in total, as well as treasuries, altars, statues, and other structures dedicated to many deities.Wilson Somewhat in contrast to Delphi, where a similar large collection of monuments were tightly packed within the temenos boundary, Olympia sprawled beyond the boundary wall, especially in the areas devoted to the games.
To the north of the sanctuary can be found the Prytaneion and the Philippeion, as well as the array of treasuries representing the various city-states. The Metroon lies to the south of these treasuries, with the Echo Stoa to the east. The hippodrome and later stadium were located east of the Echo Stoa. To the south of the sanctuary is the South Stoa and the bouleuterion, whereas the palaestra, the workshop of Pheidias, the gymnasion, and the Leonidaion lie to the west.
Olympia was also known for the gigantic chryselephantine (ivory and gold on a wooden frame) statue of Zeus that was the cult image in his temple, sculpted by Pheidias, which was named one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Antipater of Sidon. Very close to the Temple of Zeus which housed this statue, the studio of Pheidias was excavated in the 1950s. Evidence found there, such as sculptor's tools, corroborates this opinion. The ancient ruins sit north of the Alpheios River and south of Mount Kronos (named after the Greek deity Kronos). The Kladeos, a tributary of the Alpheios, borders the west.
Site plan
+ Legend 1. Northwest Propylon 12. Building of Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II 23. Heroon 2. Prytaneion 13. Hestia stoa 24. Pheidias' workshop and paleochristian basilica 3. Philippeion 14. Hellenistic building 25. Baths of Kladeos 4. Temple of Hera 15. Temple of Zeus 26. Greek baths 5. Pelopion 16. Altar of Zeus 27. Hostels 6. Nymphaeum of Herodes Atticus 17. Ex-voto of Achaeans 28. 7. Metroon 18. Ex-voto of Mikythos 29. Leonidaion 8. Treasuries 19. Nike of Paeonius 30. South baths 9. Crypt (arched way to the stadium) 20. Gymnasion 31. Bouleuterion 10. Stadium 21. Palaestra 32. South stoa 11. Echo Stoa 22. Theokoleon 33. Villa of Nero
+ Treasuries I. Sicyon IV. Byzantium(?) VII. Unidentified X. Metapontum II. Syracuse V. Sybaris(?) VIII. Altar(?) XI. Megara III. Epidamnus(?) VI. Cyrene(?) IX. Selinunte XII. Gela
The Altis
The Altis was an irregular quadrangular area more than on each side and walled except to the North where it was bounded by the Kronion (Mount Kronos). It consisted of an arrangement of buildings, the most important of which are the Temple of Hera (or Heraion/Heraeum), the Temple of Zeus, the Pelopion, and open sites used for traditional activities, such as the area of the great altar of Zeus, where the largest sacrifices were made.The final configuration of the Altis is depicted in
The Herakleian sanctuary Pindar, the 5th-century-BC Theban poet, says that Heracles founded the "sacred precinct" (zatheon alsos) next to the tomb of Pelops in honor of Zeus, his own father, referring to the precinct founded as the Altis, and made the "encircling area a resting-place for feasting," honoring the river Alfeios and the 12 Olympian gods. He assigned the name "Hill of Cronus" to the previously unnamed hill, and then instituted the Olympic games. The Greek is accessible from this site, as well as syntactical notes of every Greek word in it. Pindar creates in a single, compact sentence, what has been called "Olympic space".The sentence is (lines 44-48 of the poem) ... Διὸς ἄλκιμος υἱὸς σταθμᾶτο ζάθεον ἄλσος πατρὶ μεγίστῳ: περὶ δὲ πάξαις Ἄλτιν μὲν ὅγ᾽ ἐν καθαρῷ διέκρινε, τὸ δὲ κύκλῳ πέδον ἔθηκε δόρπου λύσιν ..., which may be translated literally as "the stalwart son of Zeus measured out the sacred grove to his greatest father: having fixed the Altis on the one hand he distinguished it in a clear space and fashioned a plain in the surrounding circle as a relaxing place for festivals." The English does not capture the Greek exactly; the Greek words require some exegesis. The space is a work of man created by a sequence of operations: first, Herakles lays out (stathmato) the sacred grove (alsos) with a surveying instrument called a stathme. Second, he "fixes" the border of the Altis (paxais Altin), and third clears the space around it (en katharo diekrine). Fourth, he "made" (etheke) ground (pedon) as an entertainment space (lusin) for festivals (dorpou). Then he goes on to "honor" the ford of the Alfeios (necessarily to the south), the twelve gods, and to name the unnamed hill for Kronos. He then can hold the first games.
Today trees have been allowed to grow over the site quasi-grove. These are primarily Cercis siliquastrum, colloquially "Judas-tree" (nothing to do with Judas), a pink-flowering low tree. If they are natural to the site now, they probably were in antiquity. Olea europaea, olive, is of course ubiquitous in the region, usually growing in planted groves, but sometimes wild. Platanus orientalis, the plane tree, is common in the area, and Pinus halepensis. Aleppo pine, also covered Kronion until the fires of 2007–2009.
There is not much indication of what structures were in the Altis, except the games must have been part of the "feasting" and therefore were held in the "resting-place". The size of the precinct must have varied as the site developed, as the original stadium is known to have extended well within the later east wall. That the temple of Zeus was built within the precinct is a reasonable assumption. As there is no trace of a succession of walls, the wall might reasonably be presumed to have been a late feature, but no later than Pindar.An alternative view is that the stadium began inside the Altis but was moved outside: . During its inside phase the spectators must have sat on the hill. In addition to disrespecting Pindar, this view requires a distance of about between the spectators and the events, a disadvantage easily seen from the current road on the hill, the steep cliff of the hill also being a disadvantage.
The Pelopian sanctuary
The classical Pelopion was a separate sanctuary defined by a peribolos wall dating to the 6th century BC, long after the conventional start of the Olympic games, 776 BC. This was certainly a remodeling of a previously existing sanctuary of Pelops. A 1987-plus excavation of the Pelopion established "a continuous ceramic sequence for the 11th century onward" including submycenaean (1100–1000 BC) and protogeometric (1000–900 BC). There was a good sprinkling of "cultic" material (votive figurines and vases).
Etymologies The name Altis was derived from a corruption of the Elean word also meaning "the grove" because the area was wooded, olive and plane trees in particular.
History
Prehistory
It used to be thought that the site had been occupied since about 1500 BC, with a religious cult of Zeus developing around 1000 BC. It may be that instead there was only a sanctuary from the 9th or 8th centuries, though the question remains in debate. Others believe that remains of food and burnt offerings dating back to the 10th century BC give evidence of a long history of religious activity at the site. No buildings have survived from this earliest period of use.
Geometric and Archaic periods
The first Olympic festival was organized on the site by the authorities of Elis in the 8th century BC – with tradition dating the first games at 776 BC. Major changes were made to the site around 700 BC, including levelling land and digging new wells. Elis' power diminished and the sanctuary fell into the hands of the Pisatans in 676 BC. The Pisatans organized the games until the late 7th century BC.