The temple dedicated to the cult of Hera is found on the southern slopes of Cronos Hill. Construction of the Heraion began in the middle of the 7th century BC; the commencement of the construction of monumental buildings in the 7th century marked the increasing importance of Olympia as a Pan-Hellenic sanctuary. The Heraion is one of the oldest examples of monumental temple architecture in Greece (N. Yalouris). Originally the small temple, 10 x 39.5 meters, lacked both naos and opithodomos; it wasn’t until nearly 150 years later, around 600 BC, that an opithodomos and peristyle were added; these features increased the dimensions of the temple to 18.5 x 50 meters. The substructure of the naos was constructed from local limestone, while the upper walls were constructed from unbaked brick. Terracotta tiles roofed the building. The entablature and the original columns were made of wood (W. Biers). The wooden columns were eventually replaced over centuries with stone ones according to the style of the period they were replaced in. These replacements occurred from the Archaic to the Roman period; when Pausanias visited Olympia around the middle of the 2nd century AD, he noted that a column of oak still stood in the opithodomos. The Heraion housed several important statues and offerings. Among them, a megalithic statue of Hera seated on her throne (of which only the head has survived), the bronze disk of Iphitus, the carved chest of Cypselos, and the Hermes of Praxiteles (N. Yalouris). The temple stood for almost 1000 years, until the late 3rd century AD.

References

Biers, William R. The Archaeology of Greece. Cornell University Press, Ithica; 1996

Gardiner, E. Norman. Olympia: Its History and Remains. Clarendon Press, London; 1925

Pausanias. Description of Greece with an English Translation (by Jones, W.H.S.) Harvard University Press, Cambridge; 1918

Schobel, Heinz. The Ancient Olympic Games. D. Van Nostrand Compay, Princeton; 1965

Swaddling, Judith. The Ancient Olympic Games. British Museum Press, London; 2004

Valavanis, Panos. Games and Sanctuaries in Ancient Greece. Getty Publications, Los Angeles; 2004

Yalouris, Nikolaos. Olympia: Altis and Museum. Verlag Schnell & Steiner Munchen, Zurich; 1976