Ash Altar Of Zeus Offers Insights Into Greece's Most Powerful God - UPDATES

These Arcadian League coins, from the 5th century B.C., show Zeus at rest. They were excavated along with several other archaeological artifacts at Mt. Lykaion in 2008.

| Discovery News 







                                      Zeus Cult Sacrificed Animals on Mountaintop Altar






Jennifer Viegas,
Discovery News
Jan. 26, 2009

-- Burnt animal bones, petrified lightning and a bronze male hand grasping a silver lightning bolt have all been unearthed at the mountaintop site of a Mycenaean Greek cult whose members gathered around an "open fire altar," according to University of Pennsylvania Museum archaeologists.

The evidence suggests the cult worshiped Zeus, the "king of gods" in Greek mythology, more than 3,200 years ago at the top of Mt. Lykaion in Arcadia.

Getting to the site is a challenge, even now.

"It was most certainly a pilgrimage and a trek," project field director David Gilman Romano told Discovery News. "It still feels like that to us today."