WHO’S ZEUS?
Thousands of years ago, people believed that a god named Zeus watched
over the sky and the weather.
A Greek sculptor and his men carved a statue of Zeus at a place called
Olympia in Greece. No one had ever seen a statue this large made
entirely of ivory and gold. Zeus sat on a throne and was so big that if
you had stood on his shoulder, you’d have had to stretch to peek into
his ear.
Some said that just one glance at Zeus would cause you to forget all
your troubles.
Once every four years, the people around Olympia held a festival to
honor Zeus. Today, more than two thousand years later, many nations meet
for the Olympic Games. Every four years, in the summer, they hold
contests in many sports, including some that were part of the festival
long ago. And, two years after the Summer Games, they meet for contests
in winter sports.
The giant statue of Zeus is gone, but people of that time wrote
descriptions of it. Since that time, artists have drawn pictures and
made models of it from the descriptions.
