Walk around the ruins of Ancient Olympia today and your eyes naturally gravitate toward the massive, chunky drums of the Temple of Zeus. It’s huge. It's the one everyone takes photos of. But if you want to understand where Greek architecture actually started—and why the Olympic flame is still lit where it is—you have to look at the Temple of Hera Olympia.
It’s older. Much older.
The Heraion, as it's often called, sits at the foot of the Hill of Cronos. It’s a bit of a hodgepodge of stone and history. Honestly, when you first see it, it looks a bit messy compared to the symmetrical perfection of later Greek temples. That’s because it wasn’t built all at once. It evolved. It’s basically a living fossil of the transition from wood to stone.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Temple of Hera Olympia
Most tourists assume this was always a "stone" temple. It wasn't. When it was first constructed around 590 BCE, it was mostly mudbrick and wood. Imagine that. The columns weren't these majestic marble pillars we see in movies; they were oak tree trunks.
As the wood rotted over the centuries, the locals replaced them one by one with stone. Because they did this over hundreds of years, every single column is different. Seriously. If you look closely at the remains, some columns are skinny, some are thick, some have sharp fluting, and others are nearly smooth. It’s a literal timeline of Doric style evolution. It's kinda like a house where the owner replaced the windows over forty years—nothing quite matches, but that's exactly what makes it cool.
By the time the travel writer Pausanias visited in the 2nd century CE, he noted there was still one original oak column left in the opisthodomos (the back room). It had survived for nearly 800 years. That’s insane durability for a piece of wood in the Greek humidity.
The Real Reason the Olympic Flame Starts Here
You’ve seen the ceremony on TV. Women in long robes use a parabolic mirror to catch the sun’s rays and light a torch. You’d think they’d do that at the Temple of Zeus, right? Since he was the king of the gods and the games were for him?
Nope. They do it at the Temple of Hera Olympia.
History is funny that way. Hera’s temple is the oldest monumental structure on the site. In the ancient world, seniority mattered. Before Zeus had his grand home nearby, Hera was the dominant presence here. Even today, the Altar of Hera, located just east of the temple, remains the most sacred spot for the modern Olympic movement. It links the modern games back to a time before the "Golden Age" of Athens even existed.
💡 You might also like: Where to Stay in Seoul: What Most People Get Wrong
Inside the Cellar: More Than Just a Statue
The layout of the temple is pretty long and narrow. It’s what architects call "hexastyle," meaning it has six columns across the front. But it’s "peripteral," with 16 columns along the sides. That 6-by-16 ratio is way more elongated than the "perfect" 6-by-13 ratio you see later at the Parthenon.
It felt cramped.
Inside the naos (the inner chamber), there was a massive limestone base that held statues of both Zeus and Hera. Zeus was standing, but Hera was seated on a throne. It was her house, after all.
But here’s the kicker. In 1877, German archaeologists digging in the ruins found something that changed art history forever: the Hermes of Praxiteles.
This wasn't just some random statue. It’s widely considered one of the few surviving original masterpieces by a major Greek sculptor. Most "Greek" statues you see in museums are actually Roman copies. This one? The real deal. It was found lying in a heap of clay and debris from the collapsed mudbrick walls, which actually served as a sort of protective bubble for the marble over the millennia.
Pausanias actually mentioned seeing it there. He wrote: "In later times other offerings were dedicated in the Heraion, including a marble Hermes carrying the infant Dionysus, the work of Praxiteles." Imagine being the archaeologist who realizes the book in your hand is describing the exact object you just pulled out of the dirt.
The Disk of Iphitos and the Sacred Truce
The Temple of Hera Olympia wasn't just a place for prayer; it was a safe deposit box for the most important legal documents in the Greek world.
The most famous was the Disk of Iphitos.
📖 Related: Red Bank Battlefield Park: Why This Small Jersey Bluff Actually Changed the Revolution
This bronze disk had the terms of the Ekecheiria—the Sacred Truce—inscribed on it. This was the law that forbade war during the Olympics. It was kept inside the temple for everyone to see. It turned the building into a symbol of peace. While the rest of Greece was usually busy stabbing each other, this specific patch of dirt was off-limits.
The Mystery of the Colossal Head
If you visit the Archaeological Museum of Olympia, you’ll see a giant, slightly terrifying stone head. It’s dated to about 600 BCE.
Experts are still arguing about it.
Most believe it belonged to the cult statue of Hera that sat inside the temple. If the head is that big, the full seated statue would have been nearly 15 feet tall. Imagine walking into a dim, smoky room lit only by oil lamps and seeing that massive face staring back at you. It would have been overwhelming. The features are "Archaic"—big almond eyes, a slight "Archaic smile," and very stiff hair. It doesn't look like the graceful statues we associate with Greece. It looks powerful, heavy, and ancient.
Why the Mudbrick Walls Actually Saved It
It sounds weird, but the fact that the temple was "cheaply" built with mudbrick is why we have so much of it left.
When the earthquakes hit in the 6th century CE, the stone temples shattered. But the upper walls of the Heraion were made of unbaked clay. When they collapsed, they didn't just break; they dissolved into a thick layer of protective silt. This layer of mud covered the floor and the lower stone sections, preserving the base and the artifacts (like the Hermes) from scavengers and the elements.
If it had been made entirely of expensive marble, people in the Middle Ages would have likely hauled the stones away to build fences or lime kilns. The "cheap" materials acted like a time capsule.
The Evolution of the Doric Order
If you're an architecture nerd, this is ground zero.
👉 See also: Why the Map of Colorado USA Is Way More Complicated Than a Simple Rectangle
The Temple of Hera Olympia is where we see the "Doric Order" find its feet. You can see the transition in the capitals (the tops of the columns).
- The earliest stone columns have "pancake" capitals—flat and wide.
- The middle-period columns get a bit more lift.
- The latest columns have the classic, proportional "saucer" shape.
It’s a mess, but it’s a beautiful mess. It’s the visual record of humans figuring out how to build something that lasts forever.
How to Actually Experience the Site
Most people rush through Olympia in two hours. Don't do that. You’ll miss the nuance.
When you stand at the Temple of Hera Olympia, don't just look at the columns. Look at the foundation. Look at the orthostats—those large upright stone slabs at the base of the walls. You can still see the notches where the wooden beams once fit.
Go early in the morning. The sun hits the Hill of Cronos and casts long shadows across the Heraion. That’s when you can really feel the age of the place. The Temple of Zeus feels like a monument to power, but the Temple of Hera feels like a monument to time.
Practical Steps for Your Visit
- Visit the Museum First: Don't go to the ruins first. Go to the museum and find the Hermes of Praxiteles and the colossal head of Hera. Once you have those images in your mind, the empty stone base at the site actually means something.
- Locate the Altar: Don't just stay inside the temple perimeter. Walk about 15 meters to the east. You’ll see a rectangular pile of stones. That’s the Altar of Hera. That is the exact spot where the Olympic flame is lit. Stand there and look back at the temple; that's the view the "high priestesses" have during the ceremony.
- Check the Column Variation: Walk the entire perimeter. Try to find the skinniest column and the thickest one. It’s a fun game that actually teaches you more about Greek history than any textbook.
- Timing is Everything: Olympia gets brutally hot. In the summer, the sun reflects off the limestone and it feels like an oven. Be there at 8:00 AM when the gates open. You’ll have the Heraion to yourself before the tour buses from the cruise ships arrive.
The Temple of Hera Olympia isn't just a pile of rocks. It's the bridge between the prehistoric, wooden world of early Greece and the marble-clad brilliance of the classical era. It’s where law, sport, and religion fused into something that we still celebrate every four years. If you ignore it for the bigger Temple of Zeus, you're missing the soul of the place.
Next Steps for Your Research
To dive deeper into the architectural transition of this site, look up the archaeological reports from the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), who have been the primary excavators of Olympia since the 1870s. For a better understanding of the cult of Hera, read Pausanias' "Description of Greece," Book 5. It provides the only eyewitness account of the temple while it was still functioning and filled with treasures. You can also compare the Heraion’s "long" floor plan to the Temple of Apollo at Corinth, which was built shortly after and shows the next stage of Doric refinement.