The statue of Zeus was built in the honor of the god who the Ancient Olympic games were held for. It was located in the ancient town that gave its name to the Olympics, the ancient town of Olympia in Greece. Athens is about 150 km east of Olympia, on the west coast of Greece. Like our modern Olympics, athletes
traveled from distant lands, including Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt and Sicily, to compete in the games.
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The Olympics were first started in 776 B.C. and held at a shrine to Zeus located on the western coast of Greece in a region called
Peloponnesus. The games, held every four years, helped to unify the Greek city-states. Sacred truce was declared during the games and wars were stopped. Safe passage was given to all
traveling to the site, called Olympia, for the season of the games. The site consisted of a stadium (for the games) and a sacred grove, or
Altis, where temples were located. |
The magnificent temple of Zeus was designed by the architect Libon. The statue construction began in 440 B.C. by the sculptor, Pheidias. The project was finally completed around the years 450 B.C. It was constructed because the Greeks felt the temple was too plain. The huge statue of Zeus took up almost the entire interior of the temple. Made entirely of ivory and gold, The Statue of Zeus was covered with symbols of victory and conquest. The statue may have been the most magnificent of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. In the year 391 A.D. the temple in Olympia, about 150 miles west of Athens, where the statue stood had a very bad year. Earthquakes, landslides, and floods destroyed the temple. The only remaining part of the temple are the ruins and the foundation of the structure. Earlier, however, Zeus was transported to a palace in Constantinople, now Istanbul, by wealthy Greek men where it was eventually destroyed by a fire near the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 462 A.D.
In the 1950's an excavation uncovered the workshop of Phidias which was discovered beneath an early Christian Church. Archaeologists found sculptor's tools, a pit for casting bronze, clay moulds,
modeling plaster and even a portion of one of the elephant's tusks which had supplied the ivory for the statue. Many of the clay moulds, which had been used to shape the gold plates, bore serial numbers which must have been used to show the place of the plates in the design.
Today the stadium at the site has been restored. Little is left of the temple, though, except a few columns. Of the statue, which was perhaps the most wonderful work at Olympia, all is now gone.
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