The Statue of Zeus at Olympia is lost
The chryselephantine Zeus disappears from the record in the fifth or sixth century CE. Competing accounts place its end at the destruction of the Olympia temple in 426 CE, at a fire in Constantinople recorded by Zonaras and Kedrenos and often dated 475 CE, or in a later Constantinopolitan disaster. No accurate copy survives.
Uncertain — sources disagree, or the dating is contested. Stated here, not resolved.
Subjects
- Statue of Zeus at Olympia · colossal cult statue (destroyed) · Greece
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Excavation of Phidias's workshop at Olympia
Archaeological confirmation that the Statue of Zeus was made at Olympia in the 430s BCE.
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Olympia excavations · 1950s · Partly verified
Olympia excavations of the German Archaeological Institute, 1950s campaigns south-west of the Temple of Zeus; the identification rests on a black-glaze cup inscribed ΦΕΙΔΙΟ ΕΙΜΙ ('I belong to Pheidias'), now in the Archaeological Museum of Olympia
Recorded on Statue of Zeus at Olympia
- Antipater of Sidon writes the earliest surviving list of seven wonders
- The Statue of Zeus at Olympia is lost
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.