Statue of Zeus at Olympia
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The Statue of Zeus at Olympia is one of the classical Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was carved by the famed Classical sculptor Phidias (5th century BC) circa 435 BC in Olympia, Greece.[1]
The seated statue occupied the whole width of the aisle of the temple that was built to house it, and was 40 feet (12 meters) tall. "It seems that if Zeus were to stand up," the geographer Strabo noted early in the 1st century BC, "he would unroof the temple."[2] Zeus was a chryselephantine sculpture, made of ivory and accented with gold plating. In the sculpture, he was seated on a magnificent throne of cedarwood, inlaid with ivory, gold, ebony, and precious stones. In Zeus' right hand there was a small statue of Nike, the goddess of victory, and in his left hand, a shining sceptre on which an eagle perched.[3] Plutarch, in his Life of the Roman general Aemilius Paulus, records that the victor over Macedon “was moved to his soul, as if he had beheld the god in person,” while the Greek orator Dio Chrysostom wrote that a single glimpse of the statue would make a man forget his earthly troubles.
The circumstances of its eventual destruction are a source of debate: some scholars argue that it perished with the temple in the 5th century AD, others argue that it was carried off to Constantinople, where it was destroyed in the great fire of the Lauseion (Schobel 1965). According to Lucian of Samosata in the later second century, "they have laid hands on your person at Olympia, my lord High-Thunderer, and you had not the energy to wake the dogs or call in the neighbours; surely they might have come to the rescue and caught the fellows before they had finished packing up the swag."[4]
Perhaps the greatest discovery in terms of finding out about this wonder came in 1958 with the excavation of the workshop used to create the statue. This has led archaeologists to be able to re-create the technique used to make the great work.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Statue of Zeus from encyclopædiabritannica.com. Retrieved on 2006-11-22.
- ^ The Seven Wonders: The Statue of Zeus at Olympia by Alaa K. Ashmawy from ce.eng.usf.edu. Retrieved on 2006-11-22.
- ^ "On his head is a sculpted wreath of olive sprays. In his right hand he holds a figure of Victory made from ivory and gold... In his left hand, he holds a sceptre inlaid with every kind of metal, with an eagle perched on the sceptre. His sandals are made of gold, as is his robe. His garments are carved with animals and with lilies. The throne is decorated with gold, precious stones, ebony, and ivory." (Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.11.1-.10)
- ^ Lucian's dialogue (Timon the Misanthrope) On-line.
[edit] External links
- "The Statue of Zeus at Olympia"
- Colin Delaney, "A Wonder to Behold: The Statue of Olympian Zeus"
- Archaeopaedia: Statue of Zeus With bibliography
- (Ellen Papakyriakou) Olympia: Art: the chryselephantine statue of Zeus
- Michael Lahanas, "The colossal Zeus statue of Pheidias"
[edit] Further reading
- Richter, Gisela M.A.. 1950. The Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks. (New Haven: Yale University Press)
- Schobel, Heinz. 1965. The Ancient Olympic Games (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Company)
- Spivey, Nigel, 1996. Understanding Greek Sculpture: Ancient Readings, Modern Meanings. (London: Thames and Hudson) 1996.
| Seven Wonders of the Ancient World |
| Great Pyramid of Giza | Hanging Gardens of Babylon | Statue of Zeus at Olympia | Temple of Artemis | Mausoleum of Maussollos | Colossus of Rhodes | Lighthouse of Alexandria |
