Photos of the Beautiful Ancient Greek Didyma Apollo Temple

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Photos of the Beautiful Ancient Greek Didyma Apollo Temple home to the Oracle of Apollo, also known as Didymaion, Turkey. Photos by Photographer Paul E Williams. (TIP – use the icons below the slideshow for thumbnail photos and info)

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Photos of the Ancient Greek Didyma Apollo Temple

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Photos of the spectacular ruins of the Ancient Greek Didyma Temple of Apollo & home to the Oracle of Apollo. Didim in Aydin Province, Turkey.

Didyma Processional Way

The Ancient Greek Didyma Temple lies at one end of an 11 mile (24 KM) processional Sacred Way that started in Miletius. Didyma Temple, or the Didymaion, was completed around 550 BC and was built over a spring from which an Oracle made prophecies.

The Oracle of Apollo

As this Oracle of Apollo was second only to the Oracle of Delphi in the Ancient World, Didyma Temple became an important centre. There was an important annual festival procession along the Sacred Way from Mietius to Didyma.

Didyma Temple Games

The culmination of the festivities was an annual competition of athletic and artistic skills. Statues commemorated the most famous winners of the Didyma Games. The bases of these statues can still be seen today at the archaeological site. Inscriptions on the bases are citations to flute players, trumpeters, actors, pantomine artists and orators. This give us a picture of the types of artistic competitions held at Didyma.

The Atheletic games held in the nearby stadium included wrestling, track racing but no chariot racing.

Didyma Temple continued as an important temple until the 5th & 6th century AD when a Byzantine church was built in the Temple courtyard.