Continued from yesterday”¦ we walked a few blocks to the Olympeion, which is a temple constructed to honor Zeus, the god of the sky and king over all the gods of ancient Greece. The site has been considered a holy place to Zeus since 600 BC. In the early days, they simply worshipped in an empty field. Over the years, several efforts were made to build a temple. The work would start, only to have the project abandoned for one reason or another. Many years later, the work would start again, only to be abandoned again. The temple was finally completed in 132 AD, under Roman Emperor Hadrian. It was one of the most impressive temples of the Roman Empire, with 104 columns. There were two enormous statues inside of equal size, one of Zeus and one of Hadrian. In the 5th century BC, the temple began to deteriorate. During the Middle Ages, the temple was converted to a Christian church, and under the Ottomans a mosque was built on the site. By 1852, only 16 columns were left standing. A storm knocked one of the columns over. It was believed that the falling of the columns liberates evil, and an outbreak of cholera at about the same time was blamed on the column’s fall.
This site isn’t anywhere close to being as put back together as the Acropolis is. There is the foundation of the temple in the middle of a field. There are a few columns left standing on the foundation. There is the one column that fell in 1852, still lying where it fell. The building was enormous in its day, very large and very tall. We were fascinated by the fallen column. Standing, the pillars look like they were carved from one giant piece of marble, but really they carefully carved are discs stacked together.
On the grounds is another impressive monument, called Continue reading