Category:Treasuries of Olympia

English: The "treasuries" are all in a single row on the lower flank of Kronion just below the aqueduct, which had to be shored up by steel structural members. Pausanias described 10 treasuries, but gave contradictory or incomplete information about the names and locations in the row of some of them. A few were already abandoned by cities that no longer existed in his time. The excavators discovered 12 foundations, which were numbered I–XII by Dőrpfeld. More recently the Ministry of Culture renumbered the structures on the terrace to A-N, including the previously unmentioned small square foundation behind the east wing of the Nymphaion. At least one turned out not to be a treasury. The term "treasury" (thesauros) is ancient and legacy, and seems to have meant a small temple dedicated to the god by a specific community, used as a secure and authoritative place to store communal sacred objects, such as gifts to the god in precious metal, the exact usage being variable and to a large degree ad hoc.