The Rise of Olympia

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2021

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the Ancient's on History Hit.
0:04.4	I'm Tristan Hughes your host.
0:06.4	And in today's podcast we are going back to that incredible ancient site on the Peloponnese,
0:11.2	which is Olympia.
0:13.0	Now in a previous podcast we talked about the Olympic Games with the Ancient History
0:17.0	Legend that is Robin Waterfield.
0:19.5	But today's podcast, we're focusing on the many other aspects of Ancient Olympia.
0:24.8	Olympia was so much more than just the Olympic Games.
0:28.0	We're going to be looking at the religious sanctuary at Olympia.
0:31.7	We're going to be focusing on its rise on how it grew to be such an important part of the ancient Greek world.
0:39.5	And in today's podcast, which is part one of a two-part special on Olympia,
0:44.7	we're going to be focusing on Olympia's earlier history from the pre-Archeg period up to the archeg period.
0:52.5	So just before 500 BC shall we say, and the start of the classical period.
0:58.4	But Olympia at this time is full of incredible history.
1:01.8	You might have noticed in the news recently that there was a figurine discovered at Olympia,
1:07.2	which does definitely date to its early historical period.
1:11.6	Now joining me for both of these episodes is another ancient history legend.
1:17.2	She is from the University of Edinburgh.
1:19.0	She has recently written a book all about Olympia and its cultural history.
1:23.3	And she also lectured me, taught me when I was at the University of Edinburgh,
1:27.6	quite a few years back now I've got to admit.
1:30.2	This is Professor Judy Baringer.
	...

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