The Statue of Zeus at Olympia was a 40 foot statue constructed of ivory and gold showing the Greek father of gods Zeus (Jupiter) on his throne. This is the statue in whose honor the Ancient Olympic games were held and which marked the site of the original Olympic games in the 400s B.C. It was located at the ancient town of Olympia, on the west coast of modern Greece (west of Athens). It was sculpted by the Athenian sculptor, Pheidias.

The temple of Zeus was designed and built in 450 B.C. and Pheidias began working on the sculpture for the temple around 440 B.C. He developed a technique for building enormous gold and ivory statues and sculpted and carved the different pieces of the statue in his workshop that still exists in Olympia today. The completed statue barely fit in the temple. The base was 20 feet wide and 3 feet high and the statue was 40 feet tall. Zeus' robe and sandals were made of gold and his throne was decorated with gold, precious stones, ebony, and ivory.

All traces of the statue is lost except for reproduction on coins, which is not totally accurate. In the first century A.D., the Roman emperor Caligula attempted to transport the statue to Rome. He was unable to do this because the scaffolding built by his workmen collapsed. The temple of Zeus was closed when the Olympic games were banned in A.D. 391 by the emperor Theodosius I. Olympia was struck by earthquakes, landslides and floods, and the temple was damaged by fire in the fifth century A.D. Earlier, the statue had been transported by wealthy Greeks to a palace in Constantinople. It survived there until it was destroyed by a severe fire in A.D. 462. Today nothing remains at the site of the old temple except rocks and debris, the foundation of the buildings, and fallen columns.