Repairs in brick and render amid remnants of Ancient Greek plaster and paint on a reconstructed colonnade of eight fluted Doric columns of the Temple of Heracles in the Valley of the Temples, site of the prosperous port city of Akragas at Agrigento, Sicily, Italy. The structure, destroyed by earthquakes, is Agrigento’s oldest temple and it was once almost as impressive as the Athens Parthenon.
Agrigento, Sicily, Italy: these eight fluted Doric columns, showing repairs in brick and render as well as patches of Ancient Greek plaster and paint, stand once again on the south side of the Temple of Heracles after being reconstructed and raised in 1923 by amateur archaeologist and former British naval officer, Sir Alexander Hardcastle (1872-1933). The rebuilt colonnade supported the entablature of the temple, which was built in the late 500s BC and is the oldest Doric temple in the Valley of the Temples, the site of the port city of Akragas. The edifice was almost as large as the Parthenon in Athens, but like other Agrigento temples, earthquakes caused its collapse and the site was quarried for stone. Sir Alexander was so bewitched by Agrigento’s beauty that he moved to a villa there, spending his fortune on excavating the site and restoring its monuments. The attribution to Heracles probably derives from a mention by Roman statesman Cicero to a temple at Agrigento dedicated to the Greek god and hero. He also told of a bronze statue of Heracles which had a highly polished chin and lips due to the caresses and kisses of devotees. The building, now protected as part of the Valle dei Templi archaeological park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has a stepped base that once bore 15 columns on each long side and six columns at either end. Akragas, founded circa 580 BC by Greek colonists, became a wealthy leading city of Magna Graecia or Greater Greece, but its prosperity stalled when Carthage sacked it in 406 BC and although it recovered, it never regained its former status. It later changed hands several times as Rome and Carthage fought the Punic Wars. The victorious Romans renamed it Agrigentum, granting Roman citizenship to its Greek-speaking people, but after Rome fell, it was ruled in turn by Vandals, Ostrogoths, Byzantines, Saracens and Normans.
Size: 4142px × 2756px
Location: Valley of the Temples, Agrigento, Sicily, Italy.
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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