As a child, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon fascinated me and when I saw an idealized painting of what it might have looked like, with the tall buildings and every inch of space taken up by greenery, my imagination soared. I discovered that the Hanging Gardens was only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. To my delight, the sense of mystery, of something requiring exploration but which had vanished some time ago in the past, was enhanced by the discovery that Ancient Greece laid claim to having one of these ancient wonders. Although it is lost to the historian, the archeologist and the curious forever, the statue of Zeus at Olympia is still able to evoke a sense of grandeur in those who study it.
This statue stood in the temple of Olympia, a distance of 175 miles south of Mount Olympus, the home of the gods. Zeus, king of the gods, stood 42.6 feet high (or three stories high) and was so tall that those who beheld it had trouble seeing his face even though the ceiling was made of somewhat translucent marble tiles to allow daylight in. Its base was 21.8 feet wide, nearly 32.8 feet long and 3.9 feet high. It was so enormously heavy, weighted with thin metal plates, gold and ivory and precious stones, that two hundred years later, Damophon, a sculptor from the city of Messene, placed four columns under the seat to prevent it from collapsing. Damophon had originally been brought to Olympia to make repairs to the statue since the damp sanctuary conditions made for severe cracking in the ivory.
Why was the temple called a sanctuary? It was here that athletes from all across Greece came to participate in the Olympics. The Olympic games were believed to have been begun in 776 BC. For those who collect trivia, this is the date the Ancient Greeks dated their year 0 from - much the same way the western world dates their calendar from the birth of Christ. There are two interpretations of the mythology which gave rise to the Olympics (Neither of which had anything to do with Zeus) but both have given way to the games being celebrated in honor of the king of the gods.
Olympia would have been found in a wooded grove in a fertile valley of the river Alphaeus which joins the Kladeus river. It is not a town but rather a shrine where people came to worship and participate in the games. There were many buildings which served the needs of those who came. From the excavations begun by French and German archeologists in 1829, we know that the first buildings were made of wood and mud brick and successive periods added their buildings on top of these.
