The seated figure of Zeus was over forty feet high ( 12 meters) and dominated
most of the interior of the temple. Zeus was the most powerful of the gods, and
many of the participants of the olympics paid homage to him before the games.
The statue construction began in 440 B.C. by the sculptor, Pheidias. The project
was finally completed around the years 450 B.C. It was constructed because the
Greeks felt the temple was too plain. The huge statue of Zeus took up almost the
entire interior of the temple. Made entirely of ivory and gold, The Statue of
Zeus was covered with symbols of victory and conquest. The statue may have been
the most magnificent of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. In the year 391
A.D. the temple in Olympia, about 150 miles west of Athens, where the statue
stood had a very bad year. Earthquakes, landslides, and floods destroyed the
temple. The only remaining part of the temple are the ruins and the foundation
of the structure. Earlier, however, Zeus was transported to a palace in
Constantinople, now Istanbul, by wealthy Greek men where it was eventually
destroyed by a fire near the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 462 A.D.
