The Valley of the Temples is an extraordinary archaeological site located in Agrigento in southern Sicily. It is one of the most important archaeological sites in the Mediterranean, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997. This was the site of the ancient Greek city of Akragas founded in the 6th century BC, one of the most important Greek cities in the Mediterranean, and a major center of commerce and culture.  It declined in the Middle Ages, with the ruins of the temples gradually covered by vegetation and forgotten. The rise of interest in classical antiquity in the 18th century, as well as new excavation techniques, led to the rediscovery of the Temples.

The site contains the ruins of seven Doric temples, all of which were built in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. The temples were built using limestone blocks that were quarried from a nearby hill.  They were originally painted in bright colors, but the paint has faded over time.  Used for religious ceremonies and political/civic events, they were destroyed by earthquakes and invasions in the centuries after they were built.

In the time we had, our guide, Vittorio Palermo, took us through just a small part of the entire complex and tried to give us a glimpse into what life would have been like here 2500 years ago when this complex was a small city-state (the 3rd largest city of the Greek Empire after Athens and Syracuse.).

The Temple of Concordia is the best-preserved and most famous temple in the Valley. It showcases the classical Doric order with 34 intact columns. Its architectural elegance and majestic proportions make it one of the finest examples of ancient Greek architecture.

Every time I see something of this magnitude and proportion, as with the pyramids in Egypt…it just boggles my mind as to how these ancient peoples figured out how to do all of this with their limited technology and tools.  Would anything built today last 2500 years?