Starting Line

View of the starting area of the earlier stadium at Isthmia.  Only half of the starting area is visible.  The other half would have been on the right side of the image but it has disappeared.

Note the “hole” in the lower portion of the image.  The starter would stand in this depression and half of the sixteen runners would have started on this portion  The starter held cords that ran thought the cuttings in the rock under bronze staples to the (now modern) wooden uprights that had a horizontal arm that flopped down when the starter let go of the cords.

On the second of the modern wooden uprights, one of the horizontal arms is visible.

The stadium it self was 175 yrds. [192 m.] long.  It was built around 550 B.C. and remove about 300 B.C. — being replaced by a larger stadium further to the southeast—not excavated.

For a detail of the starter’s hole and cord grooves Click Here.

For a detail of the modern reproduction of the starting mechanisms Click Here.

For a brief description of Isthmia and a map Click Here.