Ancient Olympia

If it’s Tuesday, it must be Olympia!

There came to be a place in Greece where young men trained mentally and physically and a competition ensued.  This was the site of the original Olympic Games located in the valley of the Alphios River in western Peloponnese. This river is all but dried up as you can see from my picture. 

We walked along the Sacred Way to the archaeological site and tried to imagine as our tour guide, Stefis, painted a picture in our imaginations of this pilgrimage site that was only visited every four years and drew 45,000 people for over 1,000 years (776 B.C. – A.D. 393).

 It all ended due to an ultra-Christian emperor as part of a purge of pagan festivals.  It wasn’t until 1896 that the modern Olympic Games were revived and athletes from around the world were invited to participate.  We saw that stadium in Athens later in the week.  But back to this peaceful ancient campus, the part I tried to imagine was the hot month of August, hundreds of young (19 – 21 year old) NAKED men covered in olive oil and dust, plus the cheering crowds of spectators!  Imagine the sunburn!

The Temple of Zeus (who was born on Kronos Hill nearby), thanks to some German archeologists, is being reconstructed.  All that stands here is one single column.

The pathway to the stadium was interesting.  It was once lined with bronze statues of Zeus of which only 16 bases survived.  Inscribed on the foot of each bases were the names of those who cheated as a warning to others!  The statues were paid for with fines levied on the cheaters.  The parent’s names were inscribed on there, too.  They were the ones who paid the fines, I am sure!

After seeing several more monuments we made our way to the archaeological museum where many local artifacts removed from the site are now displayed. 

The museum was beautifully displayed with impressive treasures!

This statue was found during excavations at the temple of Hera in 1877. The messenger of the gods, charged by Zeus to take the infant Dionysos to the Nymphs, who were to nurse him, rests on the way having thrown his cloak over a tree trunk. In his raised right hand he was probably holding a bunch of grapes and the baby reaches for it.

This ancient site has one other real connection with our modern times. Every two years, in anticipation of the upcoming summer or winter Olympic games, the torch for the games is lit here in ancient Olympia. Just in front of the Temple of Hera the torch is lit in an elaborate ceremony. Then it is carried by runner to the first modern Olympic stadium in Athens, about a 185 kilometer run. There it is handed off to the host country representatives be taken to the site of the modern games in that year.