Sicily, Agrigento And The Valley Of The Temples - 10

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Sicily, Agrigento And The Valley Of The Temples - 10

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AM FineArtPrints

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Painting - Digital Painting

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Sicily, Agrigento and the Valley of the Temples - 10 by Andrea Mazzocchetti

The Valley of the Temples is an archaeological area of ​​Sicily characterized by the exceptional state of conservation and by a series of important Doric temples of the Hellenic period. Corresponds to the ancient Akragas, monumental original nucleus of the city of Agrigento. Today it is a regional archaeological park.

Since 1997 the entire area has been included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. It is considered a popular tourist destination, as well as being the symbol of the city and one of the main of the island. The archaeological and landscape park of the Valley of the Temples, with its 1300 hectares, is the largest archaeological site in the world.

The birth of the polis agrigentina is linked to the development of the Gela polis: the city, in fact, was founded in 581 BC. from some inhabitants of Gela, originating from the islands of Rhodes and Crete, with the name of Ἀκράγας (Akragas), from the homonymous river that bathes the territory. It was one of the main cities of the ancient world, an important urban center both economically and politically.
The settlement was protected in the sixth century by a defensive system, consisting of a circuit of walls that exploited the topographic features of the place, consisting of the plateau on the side of hills that dominated the coastline and of which the "valley of the temples" occupied the margin south and did not constitute the acropolis, located instead further upstream, at the medieval core of the current city.
The military expansionism of Akragas had a particular impulse at the time of the tyrant Terone (488-473 BC) and of the victory over the Carthaginians. A period of rivalry with Syracuse followed. The great temples, built in the fifth century, however, testify to the prosperity of the city.
After the sacking by the Carthaginians, in 406 B.C., a period of decadence of the city followed, which however was rebuilt. From 262 B.C. Agrigento entered the Roman domain, but remained an important city. From the seventh century the city became impoverished and depopulated and the urban center was reduced to the acropolis hill alone, thus leaving both the urban area and the temple area.

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April 9th, 2018

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