Mount Olympus
Climbing expeditions

Archaeological evidence suggests that Mount Olympus was regularly visited in religious pilgrimages through antiquity and the early Middle Ages. For instance, ancient Greek pottery, coins, and evidence of sacrificial ashes estimated to be from 400 B.C. have been found on the summit. Plutarch, writing during the Roman Empire, reported that writings and sacrificial ashes left by priests and religious pilgrims on the summit of the mountains of Mount Kyllini and Mount Olympus could be found intact several years later, neither being washed away by rains or scattered by winds. Plutarch cited this as evidence that the highest mountains on Earth were above the clouds and winds. Augustine of Hippo, writing in the early Middle Ages, similarly reported in On Genesis that "on the peak of Mount Olympus, which is said to rise above the area of this humid air, we are told, certain letters are regularly made in the dust and are a year later found whole and unmarred by those who climb that mountain for their solemn memorials."
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