The Wonder that was Zeus

Pausanias was a Greek adventurer and geographer who was the earliest travel blogger, 2nd century AD. It was he who first branded the Seven Wonders of the World. Our journey is visiting the sites of three of those: today was the first. We were ready for the large cylinders of collapsed columns and monumental ruins and the grassy seating of the stadium where naked men competed in feats of fleetness and strength - but we didn’t expect the Olympian Archeological Park to be such a garden spot. PL: “Before I would never have thought to see this: now I can’t imagine missing it.” The famous statue of Zeus by Phidias, who also sculpted the so-called Elgin Marbles, was a wonder to Pausanias, but we knew that after presiding here for 900 years, that gold-and-ivory marvel disappeared, destroyed either in a cataclysm at the site, or looted to Constantinople and lost there. What we didn’t know is that the original sculptures of the pediments on Zeus’ temple, the work of a team of artists whose names are lost to time, are preserved and displayed in the museum here in a small Greek town as well as anything at the Pergamon or the Getty. The two pediments offered inspiration to young athletes on two virtues in physical contest: fraternity on the east (the myth of Pelops, who founded the ancient games) and ferocity on the west (the battle of the Lapiths and the Centaurs). Athletes only in imagination and craft, we were inspired for sure.Read more