It was called the Pergamon Altar, with a large structure named after Zeus, the king of the gods, ruler of Mount Olympus and god of heaven and thunder. The altar, originally built during the second century AD, suffered from the action of time, which eventually destroyed it. Only in the 19th century was the structure excavated and found by the archaeological expedition of Carl Humann, a German archaeologist, and its remains were housed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.
