What happened to the olympic sites after the ancient games stopped?

Answer 1

I am a recent college grad with a degree in history, whose concentration was in ancient Greece and Rome, so I am by no means an expert. Anyway, here is what I've found on the subject.

Unlike today's games, the ancient games were held every four years at the same place, Olympia, Greece, which was a site dedicated to Zeus. The games were held in his honor.

They were founded in the year 776 BC and continued every four years until A.D. 426, when they banned by the Christian Emperor Theodosius II of Rome (as Greece had been annexed by the Roman Empire centuries earlier), because they were concidered pagan. He then had the site with all its athletic facilities and temples destroyed.

The site remained devoyed of any real activity until it was rediscovered in 1875.

Here are a couple of sites that I've found which may provide you with more information.

The first is from the the part of the United Nations which oversees all world heritage sites. It has a great gallery, but the info on the site s sparce. The second is from a travel agency. Some of the facts are contradictory to what I know (for instance, one of my books says that there were some young women's footraces held in the stadium, while the website says that women were thrown off a cliff if they even tried to enter the complex), but the dates were correct.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/517

http://www.greecetravel.com/olympia/

I should also mention that one of the ancient which was used for (I believe) the discuss in ancient times was extended and modified for the modern games held in Athens in 2004.

Hope that answers your question!