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\ Crete
(1) / \Cyclades
(2) / \ Dodecanese
(3) / \ Peloponnese
(4) / \ Attica
(5) / \ Central
Greece (6) / \ Epirus
(7) / \ Ionian Islands
(8) / \ Thessaly
(9) / \ Evia
& the Sporades (10) / \ Macedonia
(11) / \ Thrace
(12) / \ NE
Aegean (13) /
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Grecian
Net © All rights reserved 2002
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The
great German excavations of 1875-81 cleared the whole of the sacred
precinct and some buildings that lay outside it; the position
of the stadium was located by exploratory trenches. Thus the plan
of a great Greek sanctuary was revealed for the first time. In
the early 20th century some small-scale exploratory digging was
done in the deeper layers in the sanctuary. Large-scale work was
resumed by the Germans in 1936, one of the chief aims being the
excavation and restoration of the stadium. Interrupted by World
War II in 1942, work was resumed in 1952, and in 1960 the excavation
of the stadium was completed, with its restoration in 1961. Other
structures were explored in this period, the most important of
which was the workshop of the sculptor Phidias. The sacred precinct,
the Altis, or Sacred Grove of Zeus, was an irregular quadrangle
more than 182.9 metres on a side, bounded on the north by the
hill of Cronus and enclosed by a wall on the other three sides.
In it were the temples of Zeus and Hera, the principal altars
and votive offerings, the treasuries, and administration buildings.
Outside were the athletic installations and the hostels, baths,
and other accommodations for visitors. 
The
god was represented seated on an elaborately wrought throne. He
held a figure of the goddess of Victory in his right hand and
a sceptre in his left. This statue (which was destroyed sometime
in the 5th century AD) was made piece by piece by Phidias and
his collaborators in a building just outside the Altis to the
west of the temple. Subsequently converted into a church, the
building was still known in the time of Pausanias as the "workshop
of Phidias." The excavations of 1954-58 brought dramatic
confirmation of the identification. In the deep layers in and
around the building, particularly toward the south, a great mass
of material, evidently waste from an artist's atelier, was found.
This material included tools, slivers and worked fragments of
ivory and bone, glass ornaments, and molds. The clay molds, of
a very heavy fabric, like roof tiles, with the larger ones sometimes
reinforced with iron rods, are of an unusual open form and were
evidently used for hammering into shape the thin plates of gold
that formed the statue's drapery. Pottery found with this debris
indicates that the workshop was active in the years around 430
BC, an important fact because it settles an old controversy as
to whether Phidias made the Zeus before or after his other great
chryselephantine statue, the Athena Parthenos, which was completed
in 438 BC. The new evidence is decisively in favour of the later
date. One of the pieces of pottery, a ribbed mug, has inscribed
on its bottom in neat clear letters the words "I am [the
property] of Phidias." The great altar of Olympian Zeus was
not in front of the temple, as might have been expected, but to
one side and nearer the Temple of Hera. It was elliptical in shape
and consisted of an elevated base approached by steps. From the
base rose a large mound made of the ashes of the thighs of animal
victims sacrificed to Zeus. The whole height of the altar was
6.7 metres. The oldest temple at Olympia and one of the most venerable
in all Greece was that of Hera, originally a joint temple of Hera
and Zeus until a separate temple was built for him. It has sometimes
been thought that the Temple of Hera was built in the 11th or
10th century BC, but this view is now rejected. The existing temple
was probably built about 600 BC, and an earlier phase, without
colonnade, may go back to the 8th century. The temple is long
and narrow, having 6 columns across the ends and 16 along the
sides. The columns are Doric, showing a great variety of styles
because they were originally of wood and were gradually replaced
in stone. In the 2nd century AD there was still one wooden column
in the opisthodomos. The entablature was of wood, and the upper
parts of the walls were of mud brick. The cella had two interior
rows of columns, alternate columns being attached by spurs to
the cella walls and thus forming bays. Pausanias says that in
the temple was an image of Hera seated on a throne with an image
of Zeus standing beside her. An archaic limestone head thought
to be that of the Hera has been found. Pausanias also reports
the existence of a stone statue of Hermes carrying the young Dionysus,
a work of Praxiteles that was found in the cella of the temple
in 1877 and is one of the most prized possessions of the Olympia
Museum. A row of 12 treasuries overlooked the Altis from the lowest
slopes of the hill of Cronus. These small structures in the form
of Doric temples date from the 6th century BC. All were erected
by Dorian states ranging from Byzantium to Gela in Sicily and
Cyrene in northern Africa. In the case of only three, Sicyon,
Megara, and Gela, is enough material available to allow a reconstruction
on paper. These treasuries were erected by the several states
either as thanks offerings for Olympic victories gained by their
citizens or as a general mark of homage to Olympian Zeus and to
contain the dedicated gifts in which the wealth of the sanctuary
consisted. Between the temples of Zeus and Hera, the Elean hero
Pelops had a sanctuary in the Altis that was open to the sky and
surrounded by a wall, with trees and statues within.
The
Metroum, or Temple of the Great Mother of the Gods, was a small
Doric temple of the 4th century BC just below the treasuries.
Because the cult no longer existed in Roman times, the excavated
temple contained statues of Roman emperors. A round building of
the Ionic order, with Corinthian half columns on the inside, was
erected by Philip of Macedon to commemorate his victory over the
Greeks at Chaeronea in 338 BC. The building, called the Philippeum,
contained gold and ivory statues of Philip, Alexander, and other
members of the family. The Prytaneum, in the northwest corner
of the Altis, was a building that contained a hearth on which
burned a perpetual fire and a banquet room in which the Olympic
victors were feasted. The Exedra of Herodes Atticus is a large,
lavishly decorated fountain, on an semicircular plan; it was erected
by Herodes Atticus in the name of his wife Regilla. On it were
displayed some 20 statues of Herodes and his family and of the
Roman emperors Hadrian and Antoninus Pius. The Echo Colonnade
was officially called the Stoa Poikile, or Painted Colonnade,
from the paintings that used to be on its walls, but it was popularly
called the Echo Colonnade because an echo repeated a word seven
times or more. The colonnade closed the east side of the Altis
and was separated from the east Altis wall, which supported the
stadium embankment, by a narrow passage. The colonnade was built
soon after the middle of the 4th century BC. Deep down beneath
its floor, the starting line of the early classical stadium has
been found. Zanes were bronze statues of Zeus erected with money
from fines imposed on those who wantonly violated the rules of
the Games. The bases of 16 of these have been found just outside
the covered entrance to the stadium, the entrance by which the
athletes entered. The Bouleuterion, or council house, lies just
outside the Altis to the south. It comprised two Doric buildings
of different date but of identical oblong form with apsidal ends
toward the west. In the space between was a rectangular court
at the centre of which stood the statue of Zeus Horkios (Zeus
Who Presides over Oaths). Beside this statue the athletes took
the oath not to indulge in foul play during the contests. Outside
the Altis to the southwest stood the Leonidaeum, a large hostel
for the reception of distinguished visitors, which was built in
the 4th century BC and remodelled in Roman times. To the northwest
were the Palaestra, where wrestlers and boxers trained, and the
gymnasium, which included an elaborate entrance gateway and a
covered running track. The stadium lay to the east of the Altis.
In early classical times it was not cut off from the sanctuary,
and one end of the track was in the area directly in front of
the temple and the great ash altar of Zeus. About the middle of
the 4th century BC the stadium was shifted about 90 yards eastward
and a little to the north. 
The
track was surrounded by massive sloping embankments of earth for
the accommodation of the spectators, except to the north where
the natural slope of the hill sufficed. The western embankment,
parallel to which the Echo Colonnade was built, effectively cut
the stadium off from the Altis. Connection between the two was
maintained by what was called the Krypte, or Covered Entrance,
which pierced the embankment and, in Roman times, was covered
with a stone vault. This entrance was used by the athletes and
the umpires.There were no stone seats in the stadium except for
a box on the south side about one-third of the way from the starting
line nearest the Altis; here the hellanodikai, or chief judges
of the Games, sat. Directly opposite the box was the altar of
Demeter Chamyne, from which the priestess of that cult was privileged
to watch the Games (married women were excluded from the Olympic
festival, but unmarried girls were permitted). The track was about
210 metres long and 32 metres wide and separated from the sloping
embankments by a low stone parapet beside which ran an open stone
water channel with basins at intervals.