<P> Since these myths were documented by historians like Pausanias, who lived during the reign of Marcus Aurelius in the AD 160, it is likely that these stories are more fable than fact . It was often supposed that the origins of many aspects of the Olympics date to funeral games of the Mycenean period and later . Alternatively, the games were thought to derive from some kind of vegetation magic or from initiation ceremonies . The most recent theory traces the origins of the games to large game hunting and related animal ceremonialism . </P> <P> The Olympic games were held to be one of the two central rituals in ancient Greece, the other being the much older religious festival, the Eleusinian Mysteries . </P> <P> The games started in Olympia, Greece, in a sanctuary site for the Greek deities near the towns of Elis and Pisa (both in Elis on the peninsula of Peloponnesos). The first games began as an annual foot race of young women in competition for the position of the priestess for the goddess, Hera, and a second race was instituted for a consort for the priestess who would participate in the religious traditions at the temple . </P> <P> The Heraean Games, the first recorded competition for women in the Olympic Stadium, were held as early as the sixth century BC . It originally consisted of foot races only, as did the competition for males . Some texts, including Pausanias's Description of Greece, c . AD 175, state that Hippodameia gathered a group known as the "Sixteen Women" and made them administrators of the Heraea Games, out of gratitude for her marriage to Pelops . Other texts related to the Elis and Pisa conflict indicate that the "Sixteen Women" were peacemakers from Pisa and Elis and, because of their political competence, became administrators of the Heraea . Being the consort of Hera in Classical Greek mythology, Zeus was the father of the deities in the pantheon of that era . The Sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia housed a 13 - metre - high (43 ft) statue in ivory and gold of Zeus that had been sculpted by Phidias circa 445 BC . This statue was one of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World . By the time of the Classical Greek culture, in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, the games were restricted to male participants . </P>

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