Why were adult women excluded from the Olympic Games?

Abstract

It is a well-known fact that adult women were banned from attending the Olympic Games and that those who violated this rule were supposed to be executed. It is generally assumed and indeed very likely that the exclusion can be seen as a remnant of an age-old religious taboo with a terrifying and deterring effect. In ancient Greece, it is only the cult of Ephesian Artemis in which a similar restriction is applied to women, but similar rules are found all over the world and concern hunters and their wives. In addition, written sources attest that the vicinity of the sanctuary was regarded as a superb hunting ground and Early Iron Age finds also suggest that initially, hunting was the main attraction of the sanctuary. It is therefore argued that the exclusion of married women at Olympia derived from hunting ceremonies and from the related cult of Artemis.