Agrigento: Not All the Best Ruins of Ancient Greece Are in Greece

The remains of the Temple of Juno at the east end of the Valley of the Temples

One place I wanted to visit while on Sicily was Agrigento. It's surprisingly not-famous. Agrigento is a city on the southern coast of Sicily, a two-hour train ride from Palermo, known for having some of the world's best preserved ancient Greek ruins.

So let's get on the train from Palermo's Central and ride for two hours through the Sicilian countryside and go to Agrigento.

The Valley of the Temples (Valle dei Templi in Italian) is the site of seven ancient Greek temples. The seven were built between the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. and are in various states of repair and ruin,

The Valley is about two miles straight down from the modern city of Agrigento. I entered from the east, which is what Rick Steves recommended (and who am I to question Rick Steves, especially on matters pertaining to Italy). The first temple coming from that direction is the misnamed Temple of Juno

Misnamed because Juno was a Roman goddess, the wife of Jupiter. I said these were Greek ruins. And I am not telling tales out of school here. This actually was a temple built to honor Hera, the wife of Zeus, but somebody misread an inscription during the early stages of the archaeological excavation and the error stuck.

Even though we now know better. This is easily the second-best preserved of the temples.

That group of tourists from Argentina would agree. Hey, I talk to other tourists when I travel. I'm one of those kind of people. Greek temples faced east, so this would be the front entrance of the Temple of "Juno."

I think the sarcasm quotes are appropriate since now know this temple is Hera's turf. Here's me, proving that I actually was there.

As you continue westward through the Valley, not all of the site is in such good shape, relatively speaking.

This area is called the Byzantine Arcosolia. OK.

This section is very degraded, so it is unclear what it once was.

However, the city walls of the old Greek Agrigento are visible. Of course, the Greeks, being Greek and not Italian, gave their city a more Greek-sounding name: Akragas.

The walls clearly worked well, as the temples are relatively well-preserved compared to Greek ruins elsewhere.

The next temple walking east to west is the temple in this Valley of Temples that made it to modern times in the best shape.

You could argue -- people have -- that this one has made it into modern times in better shape than any Greek temple anywhere.

The structure has been given the name of Temple of Concordia because the archaeologists can't figure out which Greek deity was worshipped here. So, as with All Saints' Day on the Christian calendar honoring all of the saints, and singling out none in particular, this has been declared a temple to all the Greek gods, especially the ones unlike Hera (whose temple we just saw) who don't rate a temple of his or her own.

It is understandable that you cannot get inside for a closer inspection.

We of the tourist horde soon would reduce this into a state of ruinization on par with the other temples at this site.

Which means I could get no closer than this. Again, Greek temples face east so I am at the front entrance demanding "Let me in. Let me in."

This is a statue of Icarus.

You remember him? The one who flew so close to the sun that, apparently, all of his clothes burned off? I'm not sure of the placement of this bronze statue here. Was it found around here? Was it found somewhere else on the site but placed here in a prominent but open location? Is it not even from the period when the valley was constructed 2500 years or so ago?

Here's a travel story to tell your granchildren. I had been talking to two couples up at the temple. We saw what appeared to be a statue on the ground, so we walked down to take a look and saw that it was Icarus. Anyway, we are looking at the statue. You may not be able to notice in the tiny photo, but when you are there staring at 10 foot tall statue, there is something very ... ummmm ... prominent that is unusually more prominent here than most ancient statuary. I commented, "Well, at least we know Icarus was not Jewish." With no delay, everyone else burst out laughing. I guess we all had been thinking the same thing. I'm always surprised when anyone, especially strangers, gets my sense of humor.

This is back entrance of the Temple of Concordia,

Heading to the next of the temples, you pass these. Burial vaults carved out of the rock?

The next temple is believed to be the first one to have been built here. These are the remains of the Temple of Heracles.

It is amazing all of these temples packed into one easily-walked site. 

This is evidence of the wealth of Agrigento in ancient times. Agrigento, at one point, was the third largest city in the Greek world, after Athens and Syracuse (the one in Sicily) (not the one in New York). That two of the three largest ancient cities in "Greater Greece," or "Magnia Graecia" as the Romans called it) were on Sicily shows how important was Sicily to the Greek world.

Poor Zeus. His Temple of Olympian Zeus did not make into the modern world in as good of shape as a few of his compatriot deities.

You would think that, being the head god among all the Greek gods, he would have had more influence or ability to keep his temple in good repair. But the good news is that because his temple is in such a ruined state, you can walk through it.

So thank you Zeus for this welcoming experience. Your wife Hera wouldn't let me walk through HER temple.

And emerging from the Temple of Olympian Zeus (the official name) (I am not aware of any "non-Olympian" Zeus, but I didn't buy the naming rights), there is the last and most controversial of the temples on this walk through the Valley of the Temples.

This is the Temple of the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux.

Why is this controversial?

Because the above are temple remains that the archaeologists just threw together in a "best guess" of what a part of the temple would have looked like. These were random fragments that sort-of fit together. Nowadays, archaeologists will only "re-assemble" the pieces if they are 100% certain these particular fragments fit with other known jigsaw puzzle pieces precisely in that way. If not they will just leave the jigsaw puzzle scattered in pieces on the ground. As with the Temple of Olympian Zeus.

 

At this point the sky was getting very ominous. There was thunder and there were flashes of lightning, although no visible bolts. Regardless, it was time to move on to a more indoor destination, the archaeological museum.