Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Museum (200m)
Canteen
0
50
Ticket Office
metres
Hill of Krónos
Entrance
Roman Baths
Prytaneion
Gymnasium
2
Fountain
House
Treasuries
Temple
of Hera
Palaestra
(wrestling
school)
Philippeion
Metroön
Stadium
Prehistoric
House
Pelopeion
Theokoleion (Priests' House)
Altis
(Sacred Precinct)
Temple of Zeus
Stoa
Greek
Baths
Altar
Hippodrome
Roman
House
Ceremonial
Gate
Studio of
Pheidias
Octagon
Propylon
House of Nero
N
Bouleuterion
(council
chamber)
Altar of Oaths
South Hall
OLYMPIA
Leonidaion
(hostel)
To the south of the studio lie further administrative buildings, including the
Leonidaion
, a large and doubtless luxurious hostel endowed for the most important of
the festival guests. It was the first building visitors would reach along the original
approach road to the site.
The Temple of Zeus
The main focus of the
Altis precinct
is provided by the great Doric
Temple of Zeus
. Built
between 470 and 456 BC, it was as large as the Parthenon, a fact quietly substantiated
by the vast column drums littering the ground. The temple's decoration, too, rivalled the
finest in Athens; partially recovered, its sculptures of Pelops in a chariot race, of Lapiths
and Centaurs, and the Labours of Hercules, are now in the museum. In the
cella
was
exhibited the (lost) cult statue of Zeus by Fidias, one of the seven wonders of the ancient
world. Here, too, the
Olympian flame
was kept alight, from the time of the games until
the following spring - a tradition continued at an altar for the modern games.
The Temple of Hera
The smaller
Temple of Hera
, behind, was the first built in the Altis; prior to its
completion in the seventh century BC, the sanctuary had only open-air altars,
dedicated to Zeus and a variety of other cult gods. The temple, rebuilt in the Doric
style in the sixth century BC, is the most complete building on the site, with some
thirty of its columns surviving in part, along with a section of the inner wall. The levels
above this wall were composed only of sun-baked brick, and the lightness of this
building material must have helped to preserve the sculptures that nineteenth-century
excavation uncovered - most notably the
Hermes of Praxiteles
.
West of the Temple of Hera, and bordering the wall of the Altis, are remains of the
circular
Philippeion
, the first monument in the sanctuary to be built to secular
