In contrast with the Classical period, in which the literary culture of Athens dominated the Greek world, the archaic poetic tradition was geographically spread out. Sappho and Alcaeus, for instance, were from Lesbos, while Pindar came from Thebes, and Alcman from Sparta. The beginnings of Greek tragedy also have their roots in the archaic period, though the exact history is obscure. The competition in tragedy at the Great Dionysia began in the 530s BC. Aristotle believed that early tragedy developed from the dithyramb, a choral hymn to Dionysius; by ancient tradition the development from dithyramb to tragedy was ascribed to Thespis. Religion Evidence from Linear B tablets shows that the gods worshipped in archaic and classical Greece shared names with those worshipped by their Mycenaean predecessors. However, the practice of religion changed significantly in the archaic period. The most significant change of the eighth century was the development of permanent temples as a regular feature of sanctuary sites, where in the Dark Ages there had probably been no building specifically used for cult purposes. In the seventh century, this development of temples continued with the appearance of the first monumental stone temple buildings, beginning with the temple of Apollo at Corinth. These temples were probably built to house cult statues of the god. Except on Crete, where there may have been a continuous tradition of cult statues from the Mycenaean period, these cult images were a new development in Greek religion – there is no evidence that Greek Dark Age cult on the mainland used cult images. Along with the introduction of temples came an increase in the number of dedications at cult sites. In the seventh century, the number of surviving dedications decreases again, but there is also a marked change in the character of dedications, from the figurines of animals common in the eighth century to human figurines. In the eighth century, some sanctuaries – for instance at Olympia – begin to attract dedications from outside the local area. Olympia The sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia had been a cult site in the Dark Ages, with dedications there dating back to the tenth century BC, but the eighth century saw an explosion in the number of dedications: 160 animal figurines are known from the 9th century, compared to 1,461 from the 8th. Bronze tripods and jewellery have also been discovered as dedications at archaic Olympia. Though most of