Terracotta is a ceramic material that acquires a reddish-yellow colour when fired. This material has been used since ancient times to build furniture and statuettes. In Magna Graecia and Sicily in particular, it was used in architecture to clad buildings, but also to create busts of deities, small...

Opus isodomum, from the Greek isos meaning "equal" and domos meaning "row of stones", was a technique that the ancient Greeks used to build large and powerful walls. The process involved cutting all the stone blocks into equal height and thickness, then arranging them in horizontal rows at a regul...

Tuttotondo ("in the round") is a sculptural technique used to create figures that are visible from every angle. The full shape of the sculpted object emerges completely from any background surface....

The skené is a construction found in front of the cavea. In the first theatres it was made of wood and was very simple. Its original function was practical: to provide actors with a secluded place to get ready without being seen, like a modern curtain. It was soon used as a scenic backdrop for ...

The Almond Blossom Festival is a popular festival in the Valley of the Temples that celebrates the early arrival of spring in the first week of February, when the almond trees begin to bloom candidly. There are two fundamental moments of this festival: the lighting of the fiaccola dell’amicizia...

The Rupe Atenea (Athenian Cliff) was probably the acropolis of Akragas, the highest point in the city. When Akragas was destroyed by the Carthaginians in 406 BC, a long period followed in which the inhabitants tried to rebuild the beautiful city and its majestic monuments. In that period, right ...

Porta V was the entrance to the city of Akragas near the Santuario delle Divinità Ctonie (Sanctuary of the Chthonic Deities) and the Temple of Zeus. Even now it is still the best preserved portion of walls in the entire Park. As soon as you were through Porta V, you would enter the main plateia (t...

Numerous coins with crab, dolphin and octopus symbols were found near the Temple of Hera Lacinia. Since these are the symbols traditionally attributed to Poseidon, the god of the sea, it is safe to say that the temple was actually dedicated to this deity. ...

Every year in July in Agrigento the Feast of San Calogero is celebrated. It is said that the monk Calogerus came to Sicily to spread the Christian faith and that during a period of plague, he walked the streets to ask for bread for the poor. Fearful that he would get too close to their houses, the...

Himera was a Greek colony founded in 648 BC on the northern coast of Sicily, near Palermo, which became famous for the battle of the same name (480 BC) in which the Carthaginians suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the people of Agrigento and Syracuse. The outcome of the conflict did not di...