Excavated sanctuary of Zeus, at the foot of Mount Kronos near the Ionian coast of the Peloponnese, and the original site of the Olympic Games. The sanctuary was a tree-lined, sacred grove in which a flame, relighted each spring in a stone enclosure, burned in honor of Zeus. All-male foot races were held in a stadium in the grove from 776 BC and became the Olympic Games. They lasted over 1000 years until AD 393, when the Roman Emperor Theodosius banned them. Excavations by German archaeologists from 1875 revealed the Temple of Zeus, the Altis, or sacred olive grove, the stadium, the hippodrome, where chariot races was held, gymnasium and baths. Excavation of the almost complete village led directly to the revival of the Olympic Games by the French Baron Pierre de Coubertin, at ATHENS in 1896.
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