Misplaced Pages

#580419

82-587: Olympia ( Modern Greek : Ολυμπία [oli(m)ˈbi.a] ; Ancient Greek : Ὀλυμπία [olympí.aː] ), officially Archaia Olympia ( Greek : Αρχαία Ολυμπία lit.   ' Ancient Olympia ' ), is a small town in Elis on the Peloponnese peninsula in Greece , famous for the nearby archaeological site of the same name. The site was a major Panhellenic religious sanctuary of ancient Greece , where

164-588: A parabolic mirror in front of the Temple of Hera and then transported by a torch to the place where the Games are held. When the 2004 Summer Olympics was hosted by Athens , the men's and women's shot put competitions were held at the Olympia stadium . Although the shot put is not among the modern athletics events with a lineage dating back to the ancient Olympics, it was chosen as requiring least disruption at

246-487: A peribolos fence or wall (e.g. Delphi ) as a structural boundary. Originally, the peribolos was often just a set of marker stones demarcating the boundary, or a light fence. The earliest sanctuaries appear to have begun as a peribolos around a sacred grove, spring, cave, or other feature, with an altar but no temple or cult image . Later, as Greek sanctuaries became more elaborate, large stone walls with gateways or gatehouses were built around important sanctuaries, although

328-872: A / , ⟨ ε, αι ⟩ / e / , ⟨ η, ι, υ, ει, οι, υι ⟩ / i / , ⟨ ο, ω ⟩ / o / , and ⟨ ου ⟩ / u / . The digraphs ⟨ αυ ⟩ , ⟨ ευ ⟩ and ⟨ ηυ ⟩ are pronounced /av/ , /ev/ , and /iv/ respectively before vowels and voiced consonants, and /af/ , /ef/ and /if/ respectively before voiceless consonants. The Greek letters ⟨ φ ⟩ , ⟨ β ⟩ , ⟨ θ ⟩ , and ⟨ δ ⟩ are pronounced / f / , / v / , / θ / , and / ð / respectively. The letters ⟨ γ ⟩ and ⟨ χ ⟩ are pronounced / ɣ / and / x / , respectively. All those letters represent fricatives in Modern Greek, but they were used for occlusives with

410-587: A common evolutionary path from Koine and have retained a high degree of mutual intelligibility to the present. As shown in Ptochoprodromic and Acritic poems, Demotic Greek was the vernacular already before the 11th century and called the "Roman" language of the Byzantine Greeks , notably in peninsular Greece , the Greek islands , coastal Asia Minor , Constantinople , and Cyprus . Today,

492-471: A late feature, but no later than Pindar. The classical Pelopion was a separate sanctuary defined by a peribolos wall dating to the 6th century BC, long after the conventional start of the Olympic games, 776 BC (which cannot be disrespected without tampering with the entire ancient Greek dating system). This was certainly a remodeling of a previously existing sanctuary of Pelops . A 1987-plus excavation of

574-548: A more limited way by Dörpfeld between 1908 and 1929 but a new systematic excavation began in 1936 on the occasion of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin under Emil Kunze and Hans Schleif . Their excavation focus was on the area to the south of the stadium, the South Stoa, bath complex and gymnasion. Between 1952 and 1966, Kunze continued the excavation joined by architect Alfred Mallwitz . They excavated Pheidias' workshop,

656-424: A pink-flowering low tree. If they are natural to the site now, they probably were in antiquity. Olea europaea, olive , is of course ubiquitous in the region, usually growing in planted groves, but sometimes wild. Platanus orientalis , the plane tree, is common in the area, and Pinus halepensis . Aleppo pine , also covered Kronion until the fires of 2007-2009. There is not much indication of what structures were in

738-433: A prototypical velar, between a velar [ ɣ ] and an uvular [ ʁ ] (transcribed ɣ̄ ). The letter ⟨ ξ ⟩ stands for the sequence /ks/ and ⟨ ψ ⟩ for /ps/ . The digraphs ⟨ γγ ⟩ and ⟨ γκ ⟩ are generally pronounced [ ɡ ] , but are fronted to [ ɟ ] before front vowels ( / e / and / i / ) and tend to be pronounced [ɡ̄] before

820-637: A sanctuary and be under the protection of the deity and could not be moved against their will. The word derives from the Greek verb τέμνω ( temnō ), "I cut". The earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek 𐀳𐀕𐀜 , te-me-no , written in Linear B syllabic script. The Latin language equivalent was fanum . In religious discourse in English, temenos has also come to refer to

902-532: A sensitive archeological site. Buildings and monuments in Olympia have been selected numerous times as main motif of collectors' coins. One of the recent samples is the €100 Greek Crypt of Olympia commemorative coin , minted in 2003 to commemorate the 2004 Olympics. In the obverse of the coin, the Crypt of Olympia is depicted. The crypt is a long and narrow vaulted passage through which the athletes and judges entered

SECTION 10

#1732772674581

984-522: A separate language because of this. Greco-Australian is an Australian dialect of Greek that is spoken by the Greek diaspora of Australia, including Greek immigrants living in Australia and Australians of Greek descent. A series of radical sound changes starting in Koine Greek has led to a phonological system in Modern Greek that is significantly different from that of Ancient Greek. Instead of

1066-472: A series of earthquakes. Invading tribes in 267 AD led to the centre of the site being fortified with material robbed from its monuments. Despite the destruction, the Olympic festival continued to be held at the site until the last Olympiad in 393 AD, after which the Christian emperor Theodosius I implemented a ban. The Temple of Zeus was apparently destroyed around 426 AD, during the persecution of pagans in

1148-400: A simple track. The stadium was remodelled around 500 BC with sloping sides for spectators and shifted slightly eastward. Over the course of the 6th century BC a range of sports were added to the Olympic festival. In 580 BC, Elis, in alliance with Sparta, occupied Pisa and regained the control over the sanctuary. The classical period , between the 5th and 4th centuries BC, was the golden age of

1230-437: A standardized variety of Demotic Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus, and is referred to as "Standard Modern Greek", or less strictly simply as "Greek", "Modern Greek", or "Demotic". Demotic Greek comprises various regional varieties with minor linguistic differences, mainly in phonology and vocabulary. Due to the high degree of mutual intelligibility of these varieties, Greek linguists refer to them as "idioms" of

1312-413: A territory, plane, receptacle or field of deity or divinity. The concept of temenos arose in classical antiquity as an area reserved for worship of the gods. Some authors have used the term to apply to a sacred grove of trees, isolated from everyday living spaces, while other usage points to areas within ancient urban development that are parts of sanctuaries. A temenos is often physically marked by

1394-467: A verb, such as augmentation and reduplication , and has lost some patterns of noun declension and some distinct forms in the declensions. Most of these features are shared with other languages spoken in the Balkan peninsula (see Balkan sprachbund ), although Greek does not show all typical Balkan areal features, such as the postposed article. Because of the influence of Katharevousa, however, Demotic

1476-550: A wider "Demotic dialect", known as "Koine Modern Greek" ( Koiní Neoellinikí - 'common Neo-Hellenic'). Most English-speaking linguists however refer to them as "dialects", emphasizing degrees of variation only when necessary. Demotic Greek varieties are divided into two main groups, Northern and Southern. The main distinguishing feature common to Northern variants is a set of standard phonological shifts in unaccented vowel phonemes: [o] becomes [u] , [e] becomes [i] , and [i] and [u] are dropped. The dropped vowels' existence

1558-487: Is a Greek dialect of central Turkey of the same fate as Pontic; its speakers settled in mainland Greece after the Greek genocide (1919–1921) and the later Population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. Cappadocian Greek diverged from the other Byzantine Greek dialects earlier, beginning with the Turkish conquests of central Asia Minor in the 11th and 12th centuries, and so developed several radical features, such as

1640-449: Is a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to kings and chiefs , or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, such as a sanctuary, holy grove , or holy precinct. A temenos enclosed a sacred space called a hieron . It was usually surrounded by a wall, ditch, or line of stones. All things inside of the demarcated area belonged to the designated god. Greeks could find asylum within

1722-475: Is an almost extinct language of Romaniote Jews . The language was already in decline for centuries until most of its speakers were killed in the Holocaust . Afterward, the language was mostly kept by remaining Romaniote emigrants to Israel , where it was displaced by modern Hebrew . Tsakonian ( Τσακωνικά ) is spoken in its full form today only in a small number of villages around the town of Leonidio in

SECTION 20

#1732772674581

1804-530: Is divided into groups that include: Demotic Greek has officially been taught in monotonic Greek script since 1982. Katharevousa ( Καθαρεύουσα ) is a sociolect promoted in the 19th century at the foundation of the modern Greek state, as a compromise between Classical Greek and modern Demotic. It was the official language of modern Greece until 1976. Katharevousa is written in polytonic Greek script. Also, while Demotic Greek contains loanwords from Turkish, Italian, Latin, and other languages, these have for

1886-428: Is extremely rare, but could be heard in literary and scholarly words or when reading ancient texts (by a few readers); normally it retains its "original" pronunciation [ŋk] only in the trigraph ⟨ γκτ ⟩ , where ⟨ τ ⟩ prevents the sonorization of ⟨ κ ⟩ by ⟨ γ ⟩ (hence [ŋkt] ). Modern Greek is largely a synthetic language . Modern Greek and Albanian are

1968-425: Is implicit, and may affect surrounding phonemes: for example, a dropped [i] palatalizes preceding consonants, just like an [i] that is pronounced. Southern variants do not exhibit these phonological shifts. Examples of Northern dialects are Rumelian ( Constantinople ), Epirote , Macedonian , Thessalian , Thracian , Northern Euboean , Sporades , Samos , Smyrna , and Sarakatsanika . The Southern category

2050-556: Is largely unique, but several of the vowels can be spelt in multiple ways. Thus reading is easy but spelling is difficult. A number of diacritical signs were used until 1982, when they were officially dropped from Greek spelling as no longer corresponding to the modern pronunciation of the language. Monotonic orthography is today used in official usage, in schools and for most purposes of everyday writing in Greece. Polytonic orthography, besides being used for older varieties of Greek,

2132-791: Is not commonly used in its purest form. Archaisms are still widely used, especially in writing and in more formal speech, as well as in some everyday expressions, such as the dative εντάξει ('okay', literally 'in order') or the third person imperative ζήτω ! ('long live!'). The following is a sample text in Modern Greek of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (by the United Nations ): Άρθρο 1: Arthro 1: Árthro 1: [ˈarθro ˈena ‖ Όλοι Oloi Óli ˈoli οι oi i i άνθρωποι anthropoi ánthropi Temenos A temenos ( Greek : τέμενος ; plural: τεμένη , temenē )

2214-569: Is still used in book printing, especially for academic and belletristic purposes, and in everyday use by some conservative writers and elderly people. The Greek Orthodox Church continues to use polytonic and the late Christodoulos of Athens and the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece have requested the reintroduction of polytonic as the official script. The Greek vowel letters and digraphs with their pronunciations are: ⟨ α ⟩ /

2296-518: Is written in the Greek alphabet, which has 24 letters, each with a capital and lowercase (small) form. The letter sigma additionally has a special final form. There are two diacritical symbols, the acute accent which indicates stress and the diaeresis marking a vowel letter as not being part of a digraph . Greek has a mixed historical and phonemic orthography , where historical spellings are used if their pronunciation matches modern usage. The correspondence between consonant phonemes and graphemes

2378-617: The Dorian Greek settlers who colonised the area from Sparta and Corinth in 700 BC. It has received significant Koine Greek influence through Byzantine Greek colonisers who re-introduced Greek language to the region, starting with Justinian 's conquest of Italy in late antiquity and continuing through the Middle Ages. Griko and Demotic are mutually intelligible to some extent, but the former shares some common characteristics with Tsakonian. Yevanic ( יעואניקה , Γεβανικά )

2460-665: The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Antipater of Sidon . Very close to the Temple of Zeus which housed this statue, the studio of Pheidias was excavated in the 1950s. Evidence found there, such as sculptor's tools, corroborates this opinion. The ancient ruins sit north of the Alpheios River and south of Mount Kronos (named after the Greek deity Kronos ). The Kladeos , a tributary of the Alpheios, borders

2542-489: The ancient Olympic Games were held every four years throughout Classical antiquity , from the 8th century BC to the 4th century AD. They were restored on a global basis in 1894 in honor of the ideal of peaceful international contention for excellence. The sacred precinct, named the Altis, was primarily dedicated to Zeus , although other gods were worshipped there. The games conducted in his name drew visitors from all over

Olympia, Greece - Misplaced Pages Continue

2624-589: The temenos boundary, Olympia sprawled beyond the boundary wall, especially in the areas devoted to the games. To the north of the sanctuary can be found the Prytaneion and the Philippeion , as well as the array of treasuries representing the various city-states. The Metroon lies to the south of these treasuries, with the Echo Stoa to the east. The hippodrome and later stadium were located east of

2706-465: The 720s. These prestigious ancient games took place during the festival of Zeus at Olympia. Olympia was a sanctuary, but it was within the independent state of Elis, and since the Eleans managed the games, there was sometimes bias. The famous Olympic truce only mandated safe passage for visitors and did not stop all wars in Greece or even at Olympia. The village services the adjacent archaeological site to

2788-515: The Alfeios River for hydroelectric purposes. The catchment up to Olympia is flat or rolling and is agricultural; upstream from Olympia the river drains the foothills of the mountains. Much of the land around the archaeological site is given to dendriculture; that is, symmetric rows of olive trees. The site and town of Olympia were threatened by the 2007 forest fires , but no damage was reported. The name of Archaia Olympia ("Ancient Olympia")

2870-441: The Altis, except the games must have been part of the "feasting" and therefore were held in the "resting-place". The size of the precinct must have varied as the site developed, as the original stadium is known to have extended well within the later east wall. That the temple of Zeus was built within the precinct is a reasonable assumption. As there is no trace of a succession of walls, the wall might reasonably be presumed to have been

2952-457: The Echo Stoa. To the south of the sanctuary is the South Stoa and the bouleuterion , whereas the palaestra , the workshop of Pheidias , the gymnasion , and the Leonidaion lie to the west. Olympia was also known for the gigantic chryselephantine ( ivory and gold on a wooden frame) statue of Zeus that was the cult image in his temple, sculpted by Pheidias , which was named one of

3034-494: The Greek world as one of a group of such "Panhellenic" centres, which helped to build the identity of the ancient Greeks as a nation. Despite the name, it is nowhere near Mount Olympus in northern Greece, where the Twelve Olympians , the major deities of Ancient Greek religion , were believed to live. Ancient history records that Pisa and Elis , other villages in the region, contended with Olympia for management of

3116-546: The Leonidaion and the north wall of the stadium. They also excavated the southeast section of the sanctuary and out of approximately 140 debris pits found many bronze and ceramic objects along with terracotta roof tiles. Mallwitz took charge of the excavations between 1972 and 1984 revealing important dating evidence for the stadium, graves, and the location of the Prytaneion. From 1984 to 1996, Helmut Kyrieleis took over

3198-655: The Ottomans in 1461. Thereafter, the Crimean Greek state continued to exist as the independent Greek Principality of Theodoro . The Greek-speaking inhabitants of Crimea were deported by Catherine the Great to resettle in the new city of Mariupol after the Russo-Turkish War (1768–74) to escape the then Muslim-dominated Crimea. Mariupolitan's main features have certain similarities with both Pontic (e.g.

3280-533: The Pelopion established "a continuous ceramic sequence for the 11th century onward" including submycenaean (1100-1000 BC) and protogeometric (1000-900 BC). There was a good sprinkling of "cultic" material (votive figurines and vases). The name Altis was derived from a corruption of the Elean word also meaning "the grove" because the area was wooded, olive and plane trees in particular. It used to be thought that

3362-521: The Peloponnese and was ancestor of Agamemnon and Menelaus , the Greek kings of the Trojan War . The tomb suggests that he may not have been entirely mythical. Another location that has a special interest to both ancients and moderns is the stadium . It is basically a field with start and end lines marked off by transverse curbing. The athletes entered under an archway of a vaulted corridor at

Olympia, Greece - Misplaced Pages Continue

3444-614: The Pontic villages of Turkey.) It derives from Hellenistic and Medieval Koine and preserves characteristics of Ionic due to ancient colonizations of the region. Pontic evolved as a separate dialect from Demotic Greek as a result of the region's isolation from the Greek mainstream after the Fourth Crusade fragmented the Byzantine Empire into separate kingdoms (see Empire of Trebizond ). Cappadocian ( Καππαδοκικά )

3526-747: The Stadium, signifying the opening of the games. Modern Greek During most of the Modern Greek period, the language existed in a situation of diglossia , with regional spoken dialects existing side by side with learned, more archaic written forms, as with the vernacular and learned varieties ( Dimotiki and Katharevousa ) that co-existed in Greece throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries. Varieties of Modern Greek include Demotic, Katharevousa, Pontic, Cappadocian, Mariupolitan, Southern Italian, Yevanic, Tsakonian and Greco-Australian. Strictly speaking, Demotic or Dimotiki ( Δημοτική ), refers to all popular varieties of Modern Greek that followed

3608-428: The area of the great altar of Zeus, where the largest sacrifices were made. Pindar , the 5th-century-BC Theban poet, says that Heracles founded the "sacred precinct" (zatheon alsos) next to the tomb of Pelops in honor of Zeus , his own father, referring to the precinct founded as the Altis, and made the "encircling area a resting-place for feasting," honoring the river Alfeios and the 12 Olympian gods. He assigned

3690-446: The area. Researchers also revealed fine pottery remains dated back to Greece's Geometric art period. The ancient site of the games had been included during all the intervening centuries within a community yet called Olympia. In modern terms it became Archaia Olympia, "Ancient Olympia," and was a deme, or municipality, of its own. In 2011 it was combined for reasons of economy of government with three other former demes within which union

3772-414: The back vowels ( / o / and / u / ). When these digraphs are preceded by a vowel, they are pronounced [ŋɡ] and [ɲɟ] before front vowels ( / e / and / i / ) and [ŋ̄ɡ̄] before the back ( / o / and / u / ). The digraph ⟨ γγ ⟩ may be pronounced [ŋɣ] in some words ( [ɲʝ] before front vowels and [ŋ̄ɣ̄] before back ones). The pronunciation [ŋk] for the digraph ⟨ γκ ⟩

3854-555: The central part of the sanctuary including the Temple of Zeus, Temple of Hera, Metroon, Bouleuterion, Philipeion, Echo Stoa, Treasuries and Palaestra. Important finds included sculptures from the Temple of Zeus, the Nike of Paeonius , the Hermes of Praxiteles and many bronzes. In total 14,000 objects were recorded. The finds were displayed in a museum on the site. Excavation continued in

3936-455: The complex vowel system of Ancient Greek, with its four vowel-height levels, length distinction, and multiple diphthongs, Modern Greek has a simple system of five vowels. This came about through a series of mergers, especially towards /i/ ( iotacism ). Modern Greek consonants are plain (voiceless unaspirated) stops , voiced stops , or voiced and unvoiced fricatives . Modern Greek has not preserved length in vowels or consonants. Modern Greek

4018-609: The earliest attestations of the dialect. Ruméika ( Ρωμαίικα ) or Mariupolitan Greek is a dialect spoken in about 17 villages around the northern coast of the Sea of Azov in southern Ukraine and Russia . Mariupolitan Greek is closely related to Pontic Greek and evolved from the dialect of Greek spoken in Crimea , which was a part of the Byzantine Empire and then the Pontic Empire of Trebizond , until that latter state fell to

4100-469: The erection of the Philippeion . Around 300 BC the largest building on the site, the Leonidaion , was constructed to house important visitors. Due to the increasing significance of the games, further athletic buildings were constructed including the Palaestra (3rd century BC), Gymnasion (2nd century BC) and bath houses (c.300 BC). Finally, in 200 BC, a vaulted archway was erected linking the entrance of

4182-413: The first excavations, accompanied by the painters Pierre Achille Poirot , Pierre Félix Trézel and Amaury-Duval . The site was divided topographically into squares, trenches were dug, excavations were undertaken in straight lines, and models for restoration were proposed: archaeology was becoming rationalized, and it was in this way that the location and identity of the Temple of Zeus were determined for

SECTION 50

#1732772674581

4264-664: The first time. Since the 1870s, the excavation and preservation of Ancient Olympia has been the responsibility of the German Archaeological Institute at Athens . The first major excavation of Olympia began in 1875, funded by the German government after negotiation of exclusive access by Ernst Curtius . Other archaeologists responsible for the dig were Gustav Hirschfeld , George Treu , Adolf Furtwängler (who worked alongside architects), A. Boetticher , Wilhelm Dörpfeld , and Richard Borrmann . They excavated

4346-580: The following communities (villages within the communities given in brackets): When Pierre de Coubertin , the founder of the International Olympic Committee, died in 1937, a monument to him was erected at ancient Olympia and, emulating Evangelis Zappas , whose head is buried under a statue in front of the Zappeion , his heart was buried at the monument. After suppression of the ancient Olympic Games in 394 AD by Theodosius I ,

4428-408: The four became municipal units. The terminology can be confusing, as "ancient Olympia" can be either the modern municipal unit, or only the site of the ruins. The town has a railway station and is the easternmost terminus of the line of Olympia- Pyrgos (Ilia) . The train station with the freight yard to its west is located about 300 m east of the town centre. It is linked by GR-74 , and the new road

4510-512: The lack of synizesis of -ía, éa ) and the northern varieties of the core dialects (e.g. the northern vocalism). Southern Italian or Italiot ( Κατωιταλιώτικα ) comprises both Calabrian and Griko varieties, spoken by around 15 villages in the regions of Calabria and Apulia . The Southern Italian dialect is the last living trace of Hellenic elements in Southern Italy that once formed Magna Graecia . Its origins can be traced to

4592-445: The late Roman Empire , following an edict by Theodosius II enforcing the ban on pagan festivals. The workshop of Pheidias was turned into a Basilica and the site was inhabited by a Christian community. Archaeological evidence suggests that small scale Olympic events (perhaps in Christian guise) were still being held secretly until Justinian's plague and two earthquakes devastated the place mid 6th century. Repeated floods ensured that

4674-626: The loss of the gender for nouns. Having been isolated from the crusader conquests ( Fourth Crusade ) and the later Venetian influence of the Greek coast, it retained the Ancient Greek terms for many words that were replaced with Romance ones in Demotic Greek. The poet Rumi , whose name means "Roman", referring to his residence amongst the "Roman" Greek speakers of Cappadocia, wrote a few poems in Cappadocian Greek, one of

4756-476: The most famous, the Acropolis of Athens , had an elaborate enclosure because it began as a palace and military citadel and was converted into a sanctuary. Carl Jung relates the temenos to the spellbinding or magic circle , which acts as a "square space" where mental "work" can take place. This temenos resembles among others a "symmetrical rose garden with a fountain in the middle" in which an encounter with

4838-546: The most part been purged from Katharevousa. See also the Greek language question . Pontic ( Ποντιακά ) was originally spoken along the mountainous Black Sea coast of Turkey, the so-called Pontus region, until most of its speakers were killed or displaced to modern Greece during the Pontic genocide (1919–1921), followed later by the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. (Small numbers of Muslim speakers of Pontic Greek escaped these events and still reside in

4920-413: The name "Hill of Cronus" to the previously unnamed hill, and then instituted the Olympic games. Pindar creates in a single, compact sentence, what has been called "Olympic space". The space is a work of man created by a sequence of operations: first, Herakles lays out (stathmato) the alsos with a surveying instrument called a stathme. Second, he "fixes" the border of the Altis (paxais Altin), and third clears

5002-497: The only two modern Indo-European languages that retain a synthetic passive (the North Germanic passive is a recent innovation based on a grammaticalized reflexive pronoun ). Modern Greek has changed from Classical Greek in morphology and syntax , losing some features and gaining others. Features lost: Features gained: Modern Greek has developed a simpler system of grammatical prefixes marking tense and aspect of

SECTION 60

#1732772674581

5084-505: The precinct, and that Olympia won, implying that the village was not identical to the precinct. The putative location of the ancient village is the modern village, which appears to have been inhabited continuously since ancient times. The archaeological site held over 760 significant buildings, and ruins of many of these survive. Of special interest to Greeks is the Pelopion , tomb of the quasi-mythical king Pelops , who gives his name to

5166-489: The region of Arcadia in the Southern Peloponnese , and partially spoken further afield in the area. Tsakonian evolved directly from Laconian (ancient Spartan) and therefore descends from Doric Greek . It has limited input from Hellenistic Koine and is significantly different from and not mutually intelligible with other Greek varieties (such as Demotic Greek and Pontic Greek ). Some linguists consider it

5248-545: The same (or with a similar) articulation point in Ancient Greek. Before mid or close front vowels ( / e / and / i / ), ⟨ γ ⟩ and ⟨ χ ⟩ are fronted, becoming [ ʝ ] and [ ç ] , respectively, which, in some dialects, notably those of Crete and Mani , are further fronted to [ ʑ ] or [ ʒ ] and [ ɕ ] or [ ʃ ] , respectively. Μoreover, before mid or close back vowels ( / o / and / u / ), ⟨ γ ⟩ tends to be pronounced further back than

5330-399: The settlement was finally abandoned altogether in the early 7th Century. Over time the site was buried under alluvial deposits, up to 8 metres deep, long thought to be the result of river flooding. Modern research hypothesizes instead—based on the presence of mollusc and gastropod shells and foraminifera— that the site was buried by sea waters resulting from repeated tsunamis . The exact site

5412-412: The site and the focus shifted to the earlier history of the sanctuary with excavation of the Prytaneion and Pelopion. In March 2021, archaeologists announced the discovery of a 2.500 year-old unbroken bronze bull idol near to the temple of Greek deity Zeus . According to archaeologist Zaharaoula Leventouri, one of the statue's horns stuck to the ground after a heavy rainfall and was carefully removed from

5494-418: The site at Olympia. A wide range of new religious and secular buildings as well as structures were made. The Temple of Zeus was built mid 5th century BC. Its size, scale and ornaments were beyond anything previously constructed on the site. The Greek Baths and further sporting facilities, including the final iteration of the stadium, and the hippodrome (for chariot-racing) were constructed. The Prytaneion

5576-576: The site dates from around 600 BC. At this time, the Skiloudians, allies of the Pisatans, built the Temple of Hera . The Treasuries and the Pelopion were built during the course of the 6th century BC. The secular structures and athletic arenas were also under construction during this period, including the Bouleuterion . The first stadium was constructed around 560 BC and it consisted of just

5658-472: The site had been occupied since about 1500 BC, with a religious cult of Zeus developing around 1000 BC. It may be that instead there was only a sanctuary from the 9th or 8th centuries, though the question remains in debate. Others believe that remains of food and burnt offerings dating back to the 10th century BC give evidence of a long history of religious activity at the site. No buildings have survived from this earliest period of use. The first Olympic festival

5740-433: The site of the sanctuary at Olympia on 10 May 1829. As most of the buildings were invisible, the general identification was made possible thanks to the more precise descriptions of Edward Dodwell and John Spencer Stanhope . The French archaeologists spent six weeks on the site. Léon-Jean-Joseph Dubois (director of the section of Archaeology) and Abel Blouet (director of the section of Architecture and Sculpture) undertook

5822-488: The southeast. The Kladeos River forms the site's western border. Visitors walk over the bridge to find themselves in front of the main gate. Full visitation is an extensive walking event. Some excavation is in progress there frequently. Moveable artifacts for the most part have found a home in one of the site's three museums. Olympia lies in the valley of the Alfeiós River (also Anglicized as Alpheus or Alpheios) in

5904-528: The space around it (en katharo diekrine). Fourth, he "made" (etheke) ground (pedon) as an entertainment space (lusin) for festivals (dorpou). Then he goes on to "honor" the ford of the Alfeios (necessarily to the south), the 12 gods, and to name the unnamed hill for Kronos. Then he can hold the first games. Today trees have been allowed to grow over the site quasi-grove. These are primarily Cercis siliquastrum , colloquially "Judas-tree" (nothing to do with Judas),

5986-431: The spirit of the games, international peaceful competition by individuals for excellence, continued. The games were resurrected in 1894 based on the ancient model, but more international than ever. The ideology of the new games turned to the site of ancient Olympia for its inspiration, where even the ruins assumed a symbolic significance. The Olympic flame of the modern-day Olympic Games is lit by reflection of sunlight in

6068-588: The stadium to the sanctuary. During the Roman period, the games were opened up to all citizens of the Roman Empire . A programme of new buildings and extensive repairs, including to the Temple of Zeus, took place. In 150 AD, the Nympheum (or Exedra ) was built. New baths replaced the older Greek examples in 100 AD and an aqueduct was constructed in 160 AD. The 3rd century saw the site suffer heavy damage from

6150-450: The start. Spectators sat mainly on the field's sloping flanks. The length of this field became the standard stadion , an ancient Greek unit of distance, which appears in all the geographers. The stadium has been resurrected for Olympic use with no intentional alteration of the ancient topography. Transient stands are easily thrown up and removed. The first major games to have been played at the Olympia stadium were said to have first begun in

6232-508: The west. The Altis was an irregular quadrangular area more than 183 m (200 yd) on each side and walled except to the North where it was bounded by the Kronion (Mount Kronos). It consisted of an arrangement of buildings, the most important of which are the Temple of Hera (or Heraion/Heraeum), the Temple of Zeus , the Pelopion , and open sites used for traditional activities, such as

6314-539: The western part of the Peloponnese , today around 18 km (11 mi) from the Gulf of Kyparissia in the Ionian Sea , but in antiquity perhaps half that distance. According to Pausanias , there were over 70 temples in total, as well as treasuries, altars, statues, and other structures dedicated to many deities. Somewhat in contrast to Delphi , where a similar large collection of monuments were tightly packed within

6396-546: Was built at the northwest side of the site in 470 BC. In the late classical period, further structures were added to the site. The Metroon was constructed near the Treasuries around 400 BC. The erection of the Echo Stoa , around 350 BC, separated the sanctuary from the area of the games and stadium. The South Stoa was built at the southern edge of the sanctuary at approximately the same time. The late 4th century BC saw

6478-402: Was extended to the new municipality of 2011. Four former municipalities became municipal units: Archaia Olympia now applied to both a municipality and a unit. The municipality has an area of 545.121 km, the municipal unit 178.944 km. For the subdivisions of the municipal units of Foloi, Lampeia, and Lasiona, see under those topics. The municipal unit of Archaia Olympia is divided into

6560-403: Was opened in the 1980s. The next stretch N and NE of Olympia opened in 2005. The distance from Pyrgos is 20 km (12 mi), about 50 km (31 mi) SW of Lampeia , W of Tripoli and Arcadia and 4 km (2 mi) north of Krestena and N of Kyparissia and Messenia . The highway passes north of the ancient ruins. A reservoir is located a few kilometres to the west, impounding

6642-483: Was organized on the site by the authorities of Elis in the 8th century BC – with tradition dating the first games at 776 BC. Major changes were made to the site around 700 BC, including levelling land and digging new wells. Elis' power diminished and the sanctuary fell into the hands of the Pisatans in 676 BC. The Pisatans organized the games until the late 7th century BC. The earliest evidence of building activity on

6724-534: Was re-discovered in 1766 by the English antiquarian Richard Chandler . Since then, the site had been visited by several other antiquarian-travellers such as Louis-François-Sébastien Fauvel , François Pouqueville , William Gell , Charles Robert Cockerell and William Martin Leake . The first excavation was not carried out until 1829, when the French archaeologists of the " Expedition Scientifique de Morée " arrived on

#580419