the archeological sight of selinunte

Selinunte was the biggest Greek city in the most West area of the Sicilian territory occupied by people coming from ancient Greece, from the VII until the V century, with a relatively short life of about 250 years. As a boarder city, Selinunte has profited a lot from the cultural and commercial exchanges with the people from Cartagine, the ancient civilization from norther Africa coming from today Tunisia and that occupied the western part of Sicily. But this special location has also been the source of its ruin, due to the many wars and eventually the defeat against the same people from Cartagine.

Nevertheless, during its highest period, Slinunte has been an extremely rich city, counting up to 100.000 inhabitants in the entire territory.

After its defeat and occupation, the city has been still inhabited until the III century before Christ and then finally abandoned. During the medieval time, only some monks have lived in the area, which was re-discovered only in the XVI century and finally mapped in the XIX century, especially by British archeologists. The rediscovery work has also allowed to put together once again some of the temples, that had been ruined by tremendous earthquakes that the area experienced in the V century after Christ.

What we can see today is one of the biggest archeological parks in Europe that may require at least half day to be visited, getting lost in the many paths that lead the visitors throughout the 3 main areas of the sight: the north hill with the first three temples, the big inhabited area and the so called Acropolis, which was the center of the city in the south of the park, next to the sea. The Acropolis especially presents the highest amount of temples, densely packed together, so much that, in the middle of the ruins, it is hard to distinguish where a temple starts and where ends. The best preserved temples can be seen in the north hill, where the so called temples E and F have been partly rebuilt. In the same area there is the Temple G, probably dedicated to Zeus, which is one of the biggest temples of Sicily and that, like the Zeus temple in Agrigento, has never been completed, so much that the construction works lasted for more than 100 years and the style has changed during the construction. Unfortunately today we can only see the ruins of the giant columns, some of which have also not been completed and the transportation marks can still be seen. Not far from Selinunte, 16 km away, we can find the mine where the stone blocks for the Temple G were being mined. Since the construction has been stopped suddenly due to the war, we can still see the extraction of the stone as work in progress and learn a lot on how the temples were being built.

If you decide to discover the park on foot, be sure to bring some water and a snack, since it is a long walk in the middle of a very hot hill without any tree.