The Ancients - The Rise of Olympia

Episode Date: May 11, 2021

Forget the Games, ancient Olympia’s importance stretched much further than simply being the birthplace of its namesake sporting festival. Boasting hundreds of years of history, at its height this critical sanctuary was home to some of the most stunning art and architecture in the ancient world. Its cultural history is astonishing, known about by scholars thanks to both an extraordinary amount of archaeology surviving and several vital ancient literary accounts. In this second episode of our mini-series on ancient Olympia, Professor Judy Barringer from the University of Edinburgh shines a light on Olympia’s early history and how the site rose to become one of the most important religious centres in the ancient Greek World. Judy is the author of Olympia: A Cultural History.

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than just the Olympic Games. We're going to be looking at the religious sanctuary at Olympia. Olympia was so much more than just the Olympic Games. We're going to be looking at the religious sanctuary at Olympia. We're going to be focusing on its rise, on how it grew to be such an important part of the ancient Greek world. And in today's podcast, which is part one of a two-part special on Olympia, we're going to be focusing on Olympia's earlier history from the Olympia, we're going to be focusing on Olympia's earlier history from the pre-archaic period up to the archaic period, so just before 500 BC shall we say, and the start of the classical period. But Olympia at this time is full of incredible history. You might have noticed in the news recently that there was a figurine discovered at Olympia which does definitely date to its early historical period. Now joining me for both of these episodes is another ancient history legend. She is from the University of Edinburgh. She's recently written a book all about Olympia and its cultural history

and she also lectured me, taught me when I was at the University of Edinburgh quite a few years back now, I've got to admit. This is Professor Judy Barringer. She is a fantastic speaker. She's great fun. This was lovely to see her again. So without further ado, here's Judy. Judy, it is great to have you on the show and it's lovely to see you again. I'm delighted to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation. Not at all. And Olympia, particularly Olympia's earlier history. Judy, this is an incredible site and we've got so much archaeology that you've been able to try and create, a chronology to try and learn how this site developed over centuries of ancient history.

That's correct. A lot of work has already been done on Olympia, of course, and that lays the foundation for what I wanted to do here. But Olympia has a tremendously long history. It was a site that was active over hundreds and hundreds of years. And we have tremendous amounts of material from Olympia. Excavation began there in the 19th century and continues up until the present day. And we continue to find new material. Absolutely. Well, let's dive into the earliest that we found from the archaeology at the site. I mean, what and when do the earliest finds date to? The earliest finds that we have from Olympia are from around 2500 BC.

The earliest finds that we have from Olympia are from around 2500 BC. And we have some pottery and we have material from this very, very early stage in the Bronze Age of Greece and the early Helladic period. And then we have kind of continuous occupation there until this kind of middle Helladic period and then there's a break. And then we don't have activity again until about the 11th century BC or so. And then it's continuous until about the 9th century AD. You mentioned there around 1100 BC. Is this when we start seeing the earliest evidence for cults at Olympia? Indeed, this is the earliest evidence that we seem to have of cult activity in the form of pottery. And then in the 10th century BC, we begin to see figurines and sculpted objects as part of cult activity. Now you mentioned figurines there. What do we know about these

incredible little objects from Olympia? Well, we have thousands and thousands of them. We have both objects from Olympia? Well, we have thousands and thousands of them. We have both anthropomorphic figures and we have animal figures. And of the animal figures, the most dominant type are bovines, although we have many, many horses as well, a few dogs, a lot of deer. So we found these on the central area of Olympia and the central sacred area of Olympia, they were scattered along with black ashes across the site in around 700 BC. So these ashes belong to a very early ash altar. And these were figurines that had been placed on the ash altar. And then all of this was dispersed in around 700 BC. And so all over the site, we find these figurines and bronze tripod legs, as well as other parts of bronze tripods.

And these were gifts to the deity who was worshipped at this ash altar. And which deity was that? This is the $10,000 question. We don't know to which deity all of this activity was being done in this very early period. The earliest deity where we have attestation of worship at the site is Zeus. And the earliest evidence for Zeus dates to the 7th century BC. Then we see later on the accrual of other deities at the site. But the earliest evidence is only in the

7th century BC. There is speculation that this activity, which produced all of these figurines, was for Zeus. That's a speculation, but it's not fact. And we know that we know about the worship of Zeus later on from inscribed dedications. This is the gold standard for establishing what deed is receiving what offering, we have to have a dedication written on the offering saying for Zeus, something like this. Let's just keep on those animal figurines a bit longer, because you also mentioned how there's a large quantity of bovine animal figurines, because in the news a few weeks back, about a month back, there was that new incredible bull bronze figurine find. And is this the context within which that find sits? Absolutely. This find, I haven't actually

had my hands on it or seen it in person, but it looks very much like all of these other thousands of figurines that we find made of bronze and terracotta that were strewn over the site when this ash altar was dismantled around 700 BC. I suspect it was part of this black layer. We call it the black layer because it's filled with this ash. And the big surprise about the figure is that it was found so close to the surface and in such wonderful condition right near the surface. And of course, this is about erosion and dispersal of the soil at the site. And it's really quite remarkable when one remembers that by the 9th century AD, when Olympia finally kind of fell into obscurity, the reason it fell into obscurity was that it was silted over with sand from the nearby Claudius River that accumulated many meters. Claudius River that accumulated many metres. By the time you get to the 9th century AD,

there's metres and metres and metres of silt on the site, which then had to be dug through to get down to the original site. So the fact that this little figurine somehow managed to kind of surface at the top, perhaps it was left over from an excavation or disturbed in an excavation, is really quite remarkable. It absolutely is. Absolutely is. I had no idea just how close to the surface it was found, Judy. That's incredible. If we then move on then, going a bit further on in antiquity, we see the emergence of this place, this area of ancient Olympia, which seems so important, which was really important, the Altus. Judy, what was the Altus? The Altus is the most sacred area of the site. This is the real sanctuary in the strict liturgical sense of the word. And the Altus is a word used only of Olympia. It doesn't occur anywhere else.

And it seems to derive from the word alsos, which means a grove or a glen of trees. And we're told from ancient writers, they mention a sacred grove of olive trees from which branches were cut to make the olive crowns worn by the Olympic victors after their wins in the athletic games. So there is this tradition of a grove having been there. And then from this word alsos, we get the word altus. And this is kind of a bounded area of the most sacred activity at the site in which, in fact, this ash altar once stood before its dispersal. But the boundaries of this bounded area, Judy, there's some debate around it, isn't there? There's some debate around it, isn't there?

Indeed, indeed. Until very recently, it was generally thought, and I'll come back to that claim in just a moment, it was generally thought that the northernmost boundary of the Altus was at the foot of Kronos Hill, that Kronos Hill stood just to the north of the site and that the boundary of the north was at the foot of this hill. There was some question, well, maybe the Altus was bigger than that, but it was never pursued and there wasn't any demonstration of that. But recently, recent finds have demonstrated that in fact, the Altus is much bigger than that. Pausanias, who's the second century AD travel writer who traveled to Olympia, and he wrote what he saw. He talks about finding an altar to Eilithuia, the childbirth goddess, as well as altars to other deities as well. He mentions them and he talks about their placement

at the site. And until recently, we had never found this altar of the sanctuary of Ilithuia. But a few years ago, this came to light during what's called a rescue excavation. That is, they were trying to put in a new, I think it was a gas line or water line. It was north of Chronos Hill where they were doing this activity. And they discovered this site, which then was excavated and they found inscribed dedications to Eilathuia. So we now know that the Eilathuia sanctuary, which Pausani says is in the Altus, was not south of Kronos Hill as had previously been thought, but was and is still north of Kronos Hill. So we have to think now that the Altus included Kronos Hill

and then with another fairly recent discovery to the northeast of the site of another sanctuary to Demeter which is also mentioned in Pausanias and he doesn't clearly indicate this is outside the Altus. The site may even be further over wider to the east by quite a lot. The Demeter sanctuary is northeast of the stadion. For those who've been there at Olympia, this may make some sense. So that now I think we have to really rethink the site. And it seems that Kronos Hill was not at the north of the site anymore, but may have in fact been right in the center of the altas. And in fact, we know that there was cult to Kronos. We have an inscription indicating that there was cult to Kronos. And there's some mention in Pausanias that there's an altar to Kronos at the top of Kronos Hill. But we actually have an inscription from the 6th century BC

indicating cult to Kronos. Its location was not, the inscription was not found at the top of the hill, but still it indicates that there's cult to Kronos. That's so interesting. I haven't heard of a cult of Kronos anywhere else. Kronos, is he the father of Zeus? The father of Zeus, yes. And there is one literary tradition that says that the Olympic Games were founded in honour of Zeus's defeat of Kronos, his father, whom he overthrew to become the head of this pantheon of Olympian gods. So that's one tradition. But Kronos Hill, we didn't have clear evidence of worship until this inscription was located. Wow. So interesting. I'd never heard of

Kronos and that before, so it's super cool. But if we move on then from that, Judy, the Altus, this whole area in Olympia, as we move on into the archaic periods, I'm guessing roughly 8th to 5th centuries BC, this is when we start seeing Olympia becoming much, much more popular through the archaeology that survives. Absolutely. And one of the clearest indications of that is a tremendous rise in the number of wells that we find. Now, Olympia didn't have a permanent well structure, a physical well structure, until the 4th century BC. Until that point, wells were always dug as needed. Think for the Olympic Games, something we should come back to, they were always dug as temporary wells. And after their use, after they were done being used, people would

use them as trash dumps. And so they're extremely useful for scholars because they have all kinds of material in these contexts. So when we find an increase in the number of wells and their concentration in certain areas around the site, we can map kind of a growth of use of wells which signifies a growth of the number of visitors who are coming to the site. And that's precisely what we see in this early phase of time, particularly around 700, then again later in the 6th century, and then again early in the 5th century, we see a rise in the number of wells. But in addition to the wells, we also see a tremendous amount of building activity in the site beginning in around 600 BC, then continuing down for centuries. But we begin to see the first major architectural structure, what it was made of is debated. But the temple, which Pausanias

refers to as the Horion, was constructed around 600 BC. And a series of treasuries were constructed on the northern portion of the site at the base of Kronos Hill, at the south of Kronos Hill. These treasury buildings begin to be constructed already before this so-called Haraion and they continue into 480 BC, they're continuing to be constructed. We also see the bounding of a religious sanctuary to the hero Pelops, which is established in the 6th century BC. So the Archaic Period seems to witness a lot of activity, more visitors, more structures, more gifts, and this major temple. And the games, I referred to the games just a few moments ago, the games were traditionally founded in 776 BC, although we think that they may

have been a whole lot older than that. But at first, it seems to have begun as kind of a local festival, but this grew over time. And of course, eventually, Olympia becomes the destination, the most important Panhellenic sanctuary, the most important athletic games in the ancient Mediterranean world. So that we know that by the fourth century BC, we have evidence that during the Olympic Games, which of course only happened once every four years, but during the Games, there were somewhere between 45,000 to 50,000 visitors at the site. Wow. It's incredible numbers when you think how long ago that was. I mean, just keeping on those religious buildings a bit longer, Judy, because you mentioned the

Horion there, and that's super interesting, especially as we've been talking about Kronos, we've been talking about Zeus. Was this, as you mentioned, this seems to have been during the archaic period, one of the central, if not the central religious building at the site? It was the religious building at the site. It was the first large-scale temple in the historical period. It was really a major construction. And Pausanias describes this building as the Haraion, a temple to Hera. But this has caused scholars no end of trouble because scholars find it difficult to believe that the first major temple at the site was for Hera and not Zeus. That's one reason. the first major temple at the site was for Hera and not Zeus. That's one reason. And secondly,

the other reason that it's problematic is that there's no clear evidence for cult to Hera at the site until the 5th century BC. And I just remind you the temple was constructed around 600 BC. And so we call this the Horion in single quotes because we're really not sure to whom it was dedicated when it was initially built. By the middle of the 5th century BC, of course, we have an enormous temple to Zeus built to the south of this so-called Haraion. So then we get this temple of Zeus. But to whom this earlier building was dedicated is not entirely clear. And scholars argue, was it for Zeus? Was it for Hera? If it was for Zeus, why did they build another temple elsewhere later on? Because the normal thing is to build on the same site, right, to renovate and use the same area again and again and again, unless, of course, it's some other aspect of Zeus that is being worshipped at the later temple.

Mysteries continue to abound indeed. And you mentioned earlier some of the other key buildings constructed during that period, which are the treasuries. I mean, Julie, these are extraordinary buildings in themselves. I mean, what do we know about them? Who constructed them and why? Pausanias describes the treasuries and he names these structures according to the cities that built them.

A treasury building is designed to hold offerings to the god or gods worshipped at the site. Usually, when we know, they are dedicated by cities, polis, sometimes by individual rulers, but usually by cities. And their chief function is to serve as kind of a bank vault for objects that are given to the deity or deities at the site. And when I say objects, I'm talking about expensive portable objects, gold, silver, chrysalophantine, things like this. And the treasury buildings at Olympia, there are 12 of them lined up in a row. And these buildings accrued over time. They were not all built at once, nor did they accrue in a single row one right after the next. It was more spotty than that,

but they ended up creating a row of buildings over the construction period of about a century. And a large number of these buildings were built by cities in the Western Greek world in Magna Graecia, what we today call South Italy and Sicily. So we have a number of these structures and they are representative, in fact, of a close tie that Western Greek cities had to the site of Olympia. So we have these structures

and also an interesting thing about the treasuries is that there's some speculation that they each were built to house one spectacular offering to the god, like kind of one centerpiece, and then other stuff would be put in there as well. When Pausanias saw this site, he saw stuff in the treasuries. Unfortunately, when we excavated, when modern scholars excavated this site, nothing was found on the treasuries. I love how you mentioned that close connection with those Western Greek cities. And when you think of Olympia topographically, obviously it's quite flat. But when you compare it or contrast it with the likes of Dodona further north or Delphi further north, you know, very much inland. For those Western Greek city-states you mentioned in South Italy, in

Sicily, yes, okay, there's a big sea in between, but actually perhaps reaching Olympia was much easier than reaching those other sanctuaries. Absolutely. Olympia, geographically speaking, was the closest large sanctuary to Sicily and South Italy. It was much, much harder to get to Dodona or Delphi, which were up in the mountains and further north. Olympia, it's not on the coast, but it's not far from the coast. And it's also in this flat terrain. And so you don't have to clamber up through mountains to get to it. This is, of course, one of the most delightful things about Olympia. People who have traveled to Greece know that if you want to see archaeology and you want to see archaeological sites, everything is up. Yeah, you have to climb. But at Olympia, this is not the case. And it comes as something of a

relief that you enter this beautiful kind of valley and this lovely sanctuary where you don't have to clamber about. So yes, Olympia, if you think about what's the closest big sanctuary to Magna Graecia, it was Olympia. In a sense, it's really, that's the focal point, the center for these colonial cities in the West. And moreover, Olympia tended to cater to Dorian cities. And many of these colonies in the West were founded by Dorian cities, not all of them, but many of them were. And so there seems to be maybe something like an ethnic link. And I use that term very, very loosely, not in the modern sense of ethnos, but in the ancient sense of kind of this group of particular Greeks kind of hung out together

at Olympia. Of all these cities in the West, there is one which seems to have a really striking connection. And that is that big city in Sicily, Syracuse. Yeah, Syracuse. Syracuse has a long, long history with Olympia. Syracuse was founded in the 7th century BC by Corinth, and Syracuse was one of the earliest cities to start making dedications to Olympia. We have lots and lots of Western Greek offerings from the 7th century and 6th century BC. Syracuse was ruled by tyrants in the late 6th and 5th centuries BC, and again in the 3rd centuries BC. And these rulers, such as Jalon, centuries BC, and these rulers such as Ceylon were very eager to make their mark at Olympia. These rulers made spectacular offerings at Olympia to celebrate athletic victories in

the games, particularly in the quadriga races. This is something that tyrants everywhere and rulers everywhere wanted to compete in because of the kind of prestige attached to horses. And they left these bronze quadriga monuments at Olympia, also at Delphi, but especially we see them at Olympia, and we're talking about Olympia right now. And these were life-size or over life-size monuments of quadrigas, four horse chariots, charioteer, sometimes the ruler, sometimes additional horses and pages seated upon them, all made of bronze at the site. They also made other kinds of dedications, not just athletic victory dedications, but they made honorific statues, and they also dedicated bits of armor as military victory dedications.

So there was a tremendous kind of activity of the Western Greeks, particularly Syracuse, not only Syracuse, but particularly Syracuse at Olympia. But in addition, there is also this tie between Syracuse and Olympia is actually indicated or attested in myth. is actually indicated or attested in myth. There's this myth of the nymph Arethusa, who was at Olympia, and she was pursued by a hunter whose name is Alpheus.

And today we know of the Alpheus River at Olympia. This is one of the two rivers at Olympia. Alpheus the hunter was pursuing Arethusa, and Arethusa didn't want to have sex with Alpheus, and so she transformed herself into a spring, and she jumped into a river at Olympia and fled under the sea to the island of Ortigia, which is connected to Syracuse. It's the earliest part of Syracuse ever to have been settled. She fled to Ortigia under the sea, this little spring water, fresh water, goes under the saltwater sea, emerges in Ortigia, and there's a fountain now in Ortigia, which is called the Arethusa Fountain. And that's apparently this manifestation of

Arethusa. And I should say that Alpheus jumped into the water after her and transformed himself into a spring as well. And he unites with her. So he actually does have his way, but these are two bodies of water coming together. So there is this kind of strange mythological link. One imagines Arethusa as kind of traveling in a tunnel, this freshwater traveling in a tunnel underneath the sea to get to Ortigia. So we have this ancient myth that shows this very strong geographical, mythological link between Syracuse and Olympia. I mean, Judy, all that you've mentioned right there and that you've mentioned so far in our chat, it really emphasises, doesn't it, that before the classical period, before the 5th century, how much incredible archaeology, how much history there was at ancient Olympia and how important a

site it was. It's tremendously important and it's really hard to overstate the importance of Olympia and not only because of the games which were tremendously prestigious and could exalt a man to everlasting glory if he won and tremendous wealth not from the games themselves but from peripheral activity around the games but also because this was an oracular site. There was an Oracle of Zeus at Olympia, which was located at the top of the ash altar, where the Oracle was read in the flames of the altar. And the Oracle was very often consulted on military matters. Olympia was tremendously important as a kind of meeting point political center for rulers everywhere. And because it had such a huge footfall, to use a modern term, it was the

ideal site for advertising military victory and a kind of peer polity interaction and competition, of peer polity interaction and competition, to borrow a phrase from Anthony Snodgrass. And this was a place where people met, where contracts were displayed, where arbitrations took place, where treaties were signed. It was tremendously important and everybody knew about Olympia and every athlete dreamed of going there and winning a victory, of course. But it was so much more. It's also, of course, a religious site, not only because of the oracle, but because Zeus is worshipped there and many, many other deities. Pausanias, in fact, describes for us, I think, some 60 altars that he saw at Olympia to various different deities and also to heroes as well.