Yesterday, Tony, Dominic, and I visited the magnificent ancient city of Selinunte with our guide Gianluca. I’m always taken aback by this site because it’s expansive. It’s strewn with ruins of massive temples and abandoned homes. To me it possesses ghosts everywhere, who continue to protect it. Selinunte was a Greek city built on the…
Tag: magna grecia
Oedipus at Siracusa
The 54th Festival of Greek Theater in Siracusa is underway. I just love when I am able to attend a performance like this one of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus that I saw earlier this week in Siracusa in the ancient Greek theater. As one of my clients pointed out–the entire experience is magnificent: Walking through…
Sant’Angelo Muxaro’s Golden Bowl
This golden bowl is a patera (libation bowl) from the 6th century BC. This particular one is a copy of the original (now in the British Museum) that was found in a cave-tomb on the hillside of the mountain village of Sant’Angelo Muxaro, north of Agrigento. Discovered in the late 18th century, the bowl sports…
Temple E Is Electric
Today considered Europe’s largest archeological site, Selinunte was a Greek city built on the southwestern coast of Sicily by colonists from the eastern Sicilian Greek outpost of Megara Hyblea. Founded around 651 BC, it displayed its power by building massive temples dedicated to various gods, like this one pictured, Temple E, which scholars believe was…
Holding Court in Siracusa
The Duomo of Siracusa represents layers of history. The foundation–both base and walls of the structure–is an ancient, Doric-style Temple of Athena, built in the 5th century BCE (Once inside, you can easily see the columns of the Greek temple!). During the Byzantine age in the 7th century CE, the temple was converted into a…
The Temple of Apollo
When you arrive on Siracusa’s Ortigia island from the land at the Piazza Pancali, you’ll find the remains of an ancient Doric temple dedicated to Apollo, the god of the sun, light, music, poetry, and prophecy. The Temple of Apollo was built in the first half of the 6th century B.C.E. The ancient Roman scholar…
Ancient Origins
In ancient Greek times in Sicily, especially in the eastern coastal cities such as Catania and Siracusa, extending to Enna, in the island’s center, Demeter and her daughter Persephone were venerated with fervor. Pictured here on this krater (a cistern used for mixing water with fermented grapes to make wine) from 425-400 BCE, now in…
Night Vision
One of my most memorable evenings in Sicily has been just after it rained and I was on my own, exploring Ortigia. The historic center glistened, and the duomo was lit up, accentuating its monumental glory.
It’s Your Cue
It’s the 5th century B.C.E. Imagine you are an actor, ready to walk on to the stage. This is what you might see (minus the photographer) in Siracusa. Note: Theater was performed during the daylight hours so the audience could see the action on stage. The Greeks designed amphiteaters so that the actors’ voices would…
Bust of Demeter from Selinunte
Terracotta bust of the goddess Demeter from the 4th century B.C.E., from the eastern hill acropolis of Selinunte, now housed in Palermo’s Museo Salinas