Valley of the Temples

Wednesday 10th October - afternoon

At 2 pm, we met a local guide who took us to the valley of the temples. There were originally seven temples, sacred buildings belonging to the 5th century Greek city of Akragas. The city occupied a high ridge, and its southern limit was a second, lower ridge where the temples were built. The city was attacked many times, and most of the temples were destroyed as a result. The modern city which now occupies the site is called Agrigento, but fortunately the lower ridge was not built over, so the remains of the temples are still there.

We started by walking up to the Temple of Juno (the Greeks would say Hera). This ruined structure has had some of its warm honey-coloured sandstone columns re-erected, and is a beautiful sight in the afternoon sunlight. 

There is a sacred way, lined with early Christian tombs, leading along to the next temple, and there are some superb views across the surrounding countryside, since the ridge is quite high.

The next temple is called the Temple of Concord. This dates to 430 BC, and is the most complete of all the temples, which is because it was converted to an early Christian church in the 6th century, instead of being destroyed like the others.

It too is built of tawny limestone,  and has the simple lines and elegant proportions of all classical Greek temples. When you look inside, you can see that the side walls of the cella have been pierced, just like the church we saw in Siracusa, to turn it into a church.

The sacred way continues past the site of an early necropolis, and passes the oldest temple, that of Hercules (Herakles to the Greeks). It was probably built at the end of the 6th century BC, and 9 of the original 38 columns have been re-erected. The rest are just scattered on the ground.

We passed a villa which used, in the 1920s and 30s to belong to an Englishman called Hardcastle, but we had no time to look at that. We went on through a second gate to the Temple of Jove (Jupiter to the Greeks).

This was a vast structure, but not much of it is left now. It was the largest Doric temple ever known, but it was never finished, was destroyed by the Carthaginians and later was used as a handy source of building stones for a port to the south of the city.

To give you an idea of how vast, a supporting column in the shape of a male figure which was to stand on top of a wall now lies on the ground. It is 8 metres high, and lies on its back with its arms raised and bent to support tne weight of the roof.

And remember, 8 metres wasn't the total height of the roof, the figure topped a high wall!

Beyond that are the scattered remains of two more temples, one possibly dating from the 7th century BC. before the city was officially founded.

By the time we had seen all of that, it was 4 pm and time to get back in the bus and head off to the hotel for a shower. It had been a really hot and sunny day and the site was not provided with much shade. I took my umbrella to use as a sunshade, but it was quite windy so the umbrella blew inside out quite a bit.