The first temples and the cult of Demeter and Persephone

Akragas in the beginning

During the 6th century, Akragas was still a modest city: the buildings, intended for both sacred and living purposes, were built with mudbrick on stone bases.
Land on the plateau was divided into arable plots and the urban structure was beginning to look like the arrangement of roads and buildings that the city would soon have.
As seen from the votive wooden sculptures found in the area, the southern hill had long been used for sacred activities, while the city boundaries had taken shape on the rocky ridges of the Hypsas and Akragas rivers. It was only towards the end of the century, however, that the city adopted a real plan that organised the streets into plateies and stenopoi .
One of the city’s most important streets connected Porta V to Porta II, passing north of what we now know as the Hill of the Temples, but which at that point was not yet built.
The ethnic and cultural components of the new city were particularly influenced by the characteristics of the homeland: the Rhodians, with their merchant liveliness, set up an emporium at the mouth of the river Akragas and later began to mint the first Akragantine coins .
The Cretans, on the other hand, imported their refined craftsmanship; it is said that the tyrant Phalaris offered the goddess Athena a splendid krater, or large vase, by the Cretan Daedalus, which depicted typical Cretan myths.
In the Sanctuary of the Chthonic Deities, a sacred enclosure is still visible with a layout reminiscent of the temple of Gortyna on the island of Crete.

The Twelve Labours of Heracles

The Eleusinian mysteries

The cult of Demeter and Persephone

Phalaris, the terrible tyrant

Reinforcement of natural ramparts

Akragas in the beginning

The walls of Akragas in the fifth century BC

The Temple of Demeter

The Sanctuary of Asclepius: a place of welcome for the sick

A monument for the victory over Carthage: the Temple of Olympian Zeus

Empedocles, the political philosopher

The Temple of Hera Lacinia

The Temple of Concordia

The Kolymbetra Garden

The lively decorations of the temple

From pagan cults to Christian worship: the Church of St. Gregory

The Akragas building sites

Vegetation in the Gardens

Theron, tyrant of the arts and victories

The most beautiful city of mortals

The Temple of Asclepius

Sacrifices for the goddesses that made the fields fertile

The sanctuary of the chthonic deities

The Temple of Heracles