Posted by katiep on Wednesday, May 17, 2017 in 2017 Blog post.

On Sunday, May 14, 2017 we traveled to Agrigento. After already wandering through the endless mosaics in the villa at Piazza Armerina, sleeping through several bus rides, and eating a buffet of pizza, I was honestly ready to embrace my food coma and go back to my bed in Cefalù. Despite my exhaustion and the heat, I got a sudden burst of energy when welcomed to Agrigento by our eccentric tour guide Marco and the beautiful temples. Marco told us that there are 27 such temples and it blows my mind that they are still standing after so many years. While we do not know exactly who the temples are dedicated to (Marco often referred to the Temple of Concordia and the Temple of Hera/Juno as Temple D and Temple F) we do know that they were dedicated to Greek Gods and Goddesses.

Towering high in the sky, the temples at Agrigento were not only fitting for the worship of powerful deities, but their immensity alerted others of the power and wealth of the city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking at the larger than life structures in Agrigento I could not help but be reminded of the memorials in Washington, D.C., particularly the Lincoln Memorial. The architecture of the Lincoln Memorial is extremely reminiscent of Greek architecture: Doric columns galore.

Despite the similarities in the architectural design of the Lincoln Memorial and the temples we saw in Agrigento, their purposes are vastly different. The citizens of Agrigento constructed their temples as houses of worship for important Gods and Goddesses. Priests were the only individuals able to enter the temples, and animal sacrifices to the Gods were made at altars in front. On the other hand, memorials like the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. commemorate the accomplishments of important presidents and figures in United States history. Today, all visitors are allowed to enter the Lincoln Memorial (and others) to take photographs of the enormous statue of Lincoln (I’m still waiting for the day they build a ladder up to his lap so visitors can sit in it and take photos…) and read his famous Gettysburg Address. We do not “worship” Lincoln when we visit his memorial, but rather we honor him and his contributions to our nation by immortalizing him in marble.

Because of the young age of our memorials in the U.S. we know their exact purposes. However, we lack such extensive knowledge about the elderly temples in Agrigento. There is only so much we can know about the Grecian temples and why they are there. If all of our history was wiped away it would be interesting to see what archaeologists in a thousand years assume about our memorials–would they be correct? Such questions make me wonder if we are even correct about the Greek temples in Agrigento. Either way, it is fun to explore and Marco clearly has a blast digging up all the knowledge he can, but, like he said, it is always better to say “I don’t know” than to make up stories. Maybe one day he will discover something more about the Greeks in the tile fragments he called “archaeological garbage.”