Olympic flame to be lit in ceremony in Greece before 1800-mile torch relay and the London 2012 Games

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The flame is lit from the rays of the sun, representing 'purity', by a 'high priestess' who captures the morning sun's rays in a parabolic mirror.

The ceremony comes amid political and economic turmoil in the home of the Ancient Olympics, where a week-long leg of the relay will be held.

The flame flies to Britain on 18 May for a 70-day relay around the UK.

The lighting ceremony takes place in front of the ruins of the Temple of Hera from 11:30 local time (09:30BST).

The flame - an Olympic symbol meant to represent purity because it comes from the sun - is then placed in an urn and taken to the stadium where the ancient Olympic Games were staged.

There, it will light the London 2012 torch of Liverpool-born Greek world champion 10km swimmer Spyros Gianniotis, who will carry it on the first leg of the relay around Greece. He will pass it on to Alex Loukos, 19, the first British torchbearer, a boxer and, in 2005, one of a delegation of east London schoolchildren who travelled to Singapore as part of London's final bid for the Games.

The torch is due to travel 2,900kms (1,800 miles) through the country, carried by 500 torchbearers, on a route circling the country and traveling out to Crete.

Greece has seen huge demonstrations of social unrest in previous months, sparked by financial chaos and efforts to reach a deal with the European Union on a bail-out for the Greek economy. Talks to try to form a new government have been ongoing after elections on Sunday failed to produce a conclusive result. Several international companies including BMW have stepped in to help fund the torch's journey.

The Greek section of the 2012 torch relay ends at the Panathenaic Stadium, Athens, on Thursday 17 May, where the flame is handed over to London Olympic Games organisers. The 2012 flame will travel straight from Greece to the UK on 18 May, flying into the Royal Navy airbase at Culdrose, near Helston in Cornwall.

The UK torch relay begins at Land's End the following morning. Carried by 8,000 torchbearers, the Barber Osgerby-designed torch will cover 8,000 miles across all of the country's nations and regions, to reach the Olympic Stadium in Stratford on 27 July to light the cauldron at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

For the ancient Greeks, fire was a divine element believed to have been stolen from the Gods.

A flame was first lit at the modern Olympics at the Amsterdam 1928 summer games, but it was not until Berlin 1936 that a torch relay route was set out from Greece to Germany.

Viewers in the UK can see live coverage of the torch lighting ceremony on the BBC News Channel, BBC Radio 5 Live and www.bbc.co.uk/2012/ on Thursday morning.

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Images courtesy of Getty Images and BBC