Olympia: Birthplace of Ancient Olympics

Sunday, Aug. 26, 2007 | 5:48 a.m.

Revered as the holiest sanctuary in ancient Greece, Olympia in the western Peloponnese hosted the ancient Olympic Games for more than 1,000 years after they started in 776 B.C.

Ruined temples of Zeus, king of the ancient Greek gods, and his wife Hera still stand on the lush riverside site - a flat stretch of land surrounded by pine-clad hills - near the stadium where the Games were held.

Systematic excavations on the site since 1875 have unearthed remains of a gymnasium, a wrestling hall, hostels, bathhouses, priests' residences and altars.

Olympia was first inhabited 6,000 years ago, and flourished in Mycenaean times. During antiquity, it was covered by a sacred wood of olive, pine, plane and oak trees among which a shimmering array of temples and public buildings stood.

An archaeological museum on the site contains a rich array of artifacts, including a marble statue of the god Hermes attributed to the ancient master Praxiteles, and war booty the Greeks dedicated to the gods after their victories over the Persians in the 5th century B.C.

The Olympics were the most important sporting festival in ancient Greece, held every four years. While the games lasted, Greece's perennially warring city-states observed a sacred truce.

After Christianity was established, the Roman emperor Theodosius abolished the games in A.D. 394, deeming them pagan. The site once again hosted an Olympic event 1,610 years later, when the shot-put contest for the Athens 2004 Games was held in the ancient stadium.

The heart of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games, is buried next to the site, in a cypress-ringed clearing on the grounds of the International Olympic Academy.