Nymphaeon of Olympia
Ruins · Greece
- Abandoned
- unknown
- Founded
- 160
- Population
- —
- Coordinates
- 37.639, 21.630
Why it was abandoned
🏛️ Ancient ruins
Detected automatically from the text: ruins in Ancient Olympia Municipality, Greece
History
Nymphaeum (Olympia) (Latin, Ancient Greek: νυμφαῖον), etymologically "home of the nymphs" or water goddesses, at ancient Olympia was the official name of a water-distribution structure constructed in the mid-2nd century at that site to provide water to the masses who attended the Olympic Games in July and August. Nymphaeum was the general name throughout the Mediterranean for an ornate structure that terminated an aqueduct bringing water from distant elevated terrain, say a stream or copious springs. This one had substructures, statues, and ornately patterned stonework; its main purpose, however, was functional. It received water from the aqueduct into a cistern and released it by stages into a system of open and closed channels leading around the site.