Where the Olympic flame is still lit — birthplace of the Games
Ancient Olympia, set in a lush river valley in the western Peloponnese, was the most sacred sanctuary in the ancient Greek world and home of the Olympic Games for over a thousand years. The ruins — the Temple of Zeus (housing Pheidias's gold-and-ivory statue, a Wonder of the World), the Temple of Hera, the stadium where the Games were held, the Palaestra wrestling school, and Pheidias's workshop — are spread across a leafy archaeological park. The Olympic flame ceremony still takes place here before every modern Games, conducted by the High Priestess of Hera in the ruins of the Temple of Hera.
The Olympic Games were held at Olympia every four years from 776 BC to 393 AD — over a thousand years of continuous tradition. The Games were a pan-Hellenic truce: wars paused, city-states competed peacefully. The Sanctuary of Zeus grew to include the Altis sacred grove, treasuries from Greek city-states, and the great Temple of Zeus housing Pheidias's chryselephantine statue (one of the Seven Wonders). Emperor Theodosius I banned the Games in 393 AD as pagan; subsequent earthquakes and the Alpheios River buried the site. German excavations beginning in 1875 have recovered most of the major s…