Return to Agrigento photos

Agrigento, beautiful city on the middle of the southern coast of Sicily, can be historically recounted by its various names: called Akragas by the Greeks who founded it in 582 BC, nothing by the Carthaginians who destroyed it and murdered its people in 405 BC, Agrigentum by the Romans (210 BC), Karkint by the Arabs (806), Girgentum by the Byzantines, and various names by the Normans, Swabians, Spaniards, and Bourbons. Later it was Girgenti when Italian replaced Latin in official documents, and finally it was named Agrigento by the Italian government in 1927.

The current city is attractive, but not the attraction. Visitors to Agrigento go mainly to see its magnificent Hellenic ruins; nowhere else, not even in Greece, are so many classical Greek monuments found in one place. To make the site even more impressive, all of the temples are within sight of each other, practically along a great "avenue" overlooking the Mediterranean.

The temple of Concordia (so named based on a tablet found in the ruins in Roman times; there is no record of the god for whom the temple was built), built 5C BC, is among the best-preserved Greek temples in the world. The temple of Juno (450 BC) has the same form and structure. The temple of Hercules (6C BC) is the second largest of the group. The Dioscuri temple, of which remaining pillars are shown, has become the symbol of the city of Agrigento. Altogether, at least eight temples and several other similar structures can be visited, all within walking distance!

Also in the area are Greek and Roman tombs carved into natural rock walls overlooking the plains, and systematic Christian graves carved in stone, very near the Greek temples (see photos). It is difficult to discriminate the ages of these structures, all so close together. When some were built, others were already in ruins-or were ruined to furnish materials for later structures! Altogether, it is one of the most impressive historical sites on the Mediterranean.