Tag: ancient greek
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An Offering to the Goddess
This terracotta figure from Siracusa’s archaeological museum is one of hundreds of examples of statuettes found around the island of Ortigia that is attributed to the cult of Demeter and Kore (Persephone). I find this divine figure especially interesting because more recent images of Santa Lucia, the patron saint of Siracusa who is celebrated in…
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Unknown Star
This six-pointed star is an inlay in the terracotta pavement of the principal street at Solunto on the summit of Mount Catalfano in Santa Flavia. Scholars don’t know the sigificance of it. Solunto was originally a Pheonician settlement that was established between the 8th and 7th centuries BC. The Greeks conquered it in the 4th…
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A Temple for Hera
The Doric-style Temple “E” at the ancient Greek site of Selinunte was completed between 490 and 480 BC. Recent research reveals that it was probably dedicated to the goddess Hera, the protectress of weddings, engaged couples, and pregnant women.
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Summer and the Divine Feminine
The end of August and beginning of September in Sicily is a period that marks many feasts in honor of various feminine saints, celebrations that are linked to ancient rites that expressed gratefulness to the earth for the bounty of the harvest. The ancient Greeks, who started to settle in Sicily in the 8th century…
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Framing Selinunte
Flowers are everywhere in Sicily. These at Selinunte framed a view of the remains of one of the massive ancient Greek temples.
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Selinunte’s Massive Columns
The ancient columns of Temple A (480-470 BC) at Selinunte are massive. Do you see the photographer?
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Agrigento’s Temple of Heracles
These massive doric columns are from the 6th century BC Temple of Heracles at Agrigento’s Valley of the Temples (Valle dei Templi). The eight of them were reconstructed in 1924. The ancient city of Akragas was established by the Greeks and then conquered by the Romans, who renamed it Agrigentum.
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Agrigento’s Temple of Castor and Pollux
The four remaining columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, built in the 5th century BC and reconstructed in the 19th century, offer a lasting impression of the outstanding Valle dei Templi ruins of the ancient Greater Greece colony that was once 200,000 inhabitants strong.
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Excavation Still Underway
The ancient city of Selinunte is today still under excavation. Here an archaeologist continues to uncover the story of one of the eight Phoenician and Greek temples left to be forgotten after the city was destroyed by Carthage in 409 BC.