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settlement transferred to the site where it presently stands, to allow the excavations
at the sanctuary of Apollo to proceed smoothly.
The impact of the excavations at Olympia, whose first main phase was completed
in 1881, was tremendous. This was not simply due to the fact that, during
their seven-year duration, the main monuments of the Altis could be revealed or
identified, with a rich collection of artefacts, sculptures, metal and clay objects,
etc., including the colossal sculptures of the temple of Zeus and Praxiteles' statue
of Hermes. But also because they were accompanied by systematic interpretative
publications which became a model for archaeological research in general.
The French archaeologists who excavated the Delphic sanctuary carried out
their research, studies and publication of results in the same consistent manner.
These two major archaeological discoveries, especially those at Olympia, had a
strong and direct impact on an ideological educational movement whose roots are
also to be found in the Renaissance: the revival of the Olympic Games. The first
sparks of interest about the Games and the sporting ideal outside Greece were observed
in the 16th century, in England, Germany and France. After that, they were
to become a veritable blaze and lead to the Games of the First Olympiad in 1896.
For their realization, another dedicated and no less persistent visionary was needed,
baron Pierre de Coubertin.
As he affirms himself, in his plans to establish the new Olympiads, apart from
a few precious friends and supporters, Dimitrios Vikelas in particular, he was inspired
by the "revival" of the sanctuary of Olympia which had become reality in
1881. Its discovery fascinated not only intellectual and artistic circles, but the vast
mass of the people in most countries of the five continents.
In his book, "Une campagne de vingt et un ans" - 1909 (p. 89 & ff) Coubertin
confesses: "Nothing in ancient history had made me dream more than Olympia.
This dream city, devoted to a purely human and material task, in its practical form,
but purified and elevated by the notion of the fatherland which found there, in a
way, a reserve of vital forces, always brought before my adolescent eyes its columns
and porticoes. Long before I ever thought of extracting from its ruins a reviving
principle, I had tried in may mind to rebuild, to reanimate its linear figure.
Germany had unburied what remained of Olympia. Why could not France restore
its splendour ?
"From there to the less brilliant, but more practical and fertile plan of reviving
the Games, there was not a long way to go, especially since the time had now
come for sports internationalism to play once again its role in the world."
The revelation, the "revival" I should rather say, of the sanctuary of Olympia
was neither an isolated fact nor the result of an unquenchable thirst for more complete
knowledge about the history of man's achievements. It was more the direction
followed by the spiritual leaders of more recent times in their indefatigable effort
to plunge into the heart of the wisdom which the Greeks had acquired and the
way in which they had managed to put it to practice through the incessant cultivation
of athletics and the spirit of fair play which brought fulfilment and balanced
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