Olympia, Greece-Part 1: Where the Olympic Games Began

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

(Sorry about the long blog silence – we did not fall off the boat or get captured by pirates! We were just so busy adventuring that we needed what little downtime we had between excursions and eating to really chill!)

Our Olympia day adventure started with an 8:00 am meetup at the bus to take us to the Olympia site. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable, and while we rode on the bus, she filled us in on the beginning of the Greek gods and their mythological exploits and misadventures. Since Olympia is a sanctuary site dedicated to the worship of Zeus Olympios and athletic prowess, the stories began with him and his family.

Our very entertaining guide with lots of picture books in her bag!

Some history for perspective first. The site has evidence of being a settlement in 3000 BC, with more inhabitants during the Mycenaean period of 1600-1100 BC. The sanctuary to Zeus was begun between 1000-900 BC. In 776 BC the Olympic Games began which influenced the future architecture and planning at the site in support of them and the people connected to them. Between 500-400 BC, the site was completed in its final form. In 393 AD festivals were forbidden in sanctuaries, in 426 AD imperial (Christian!) decree ordered the destruction of the monuments, and an earthquake in the 6th century AD devastated whatever was left.

It’s a very large site!

An interesting round temple

Temple to Hera, Zeus’s wife

What Hera’s temple looked like showing the 3 existing columns

So, there is a lot of classical Greek rubble with beautiful carved Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian capitals lying amongst broken sections of fluted columns and carved friezes. There are some columns still standing as well as plenty of foundations of buildings. It is still an active archaeological dig site, so much more is yet to be discovered. All statues that have been found are in the museum (which we did not see!)

The site is huge and contains temples to Zeus and his wife Hera, many treasuries to hold the tributes given to the gods, the Olympic stadium, as well as a house built for Nero. It even has a “walk of shame” that contained a row of statues of Zeus and permanent plaques with the names and transgressions of the athletes who cheated, to be viewed by everyone as they entered the stadium!

The Zeus statues of the walk of shame with the tribute buildings behind them on the hill

The walk of shame now on the way into the stadium

The stadium possibly held 45,000 spectators (all men as women weren’t allowed inside!) seated on the grassy sloped sides. The track dimensions between the start and finish stone lines were 192.27 x 28.50 meters.

The stadium from one end slope

With scenery beyond

Every town and village held games every year and sent their best athletes to participate at Olympia every four years. They had many of the same track and field events as today. All of the participants, judges, attendees, baths, etc. all stayed outside the sanctuary site in tents.