Museo Regionale Archeologico di Agrigento

The Museo Regionale Archeologico di Agrigento, dedicated to the archaeologist Pietro Griffo, stands on the hill of San Nicola between the modern city and the Valley of the Temples in southern Sicily, making it the natural complement to a visit to the ancient temples of Akragas. Opened in 1967 in a building incorporating the medieval cloister and church of San Nicola, the museum gathers finds from the city and territory of ancient Akragas, one of the wealthiest Greek colonies of Sicily, together with material from the wider province. Its galleries are arranged thematically and chronologically, leading from prehistoric and protohistoric finds through the great age of the Greek city to the Hellenistic, Roman and late antique periods. The undisputed highlight is the colossal Telamon, a giant stone figure more than seven metres tall that once helped support the entablature of the vast Temple of Olympian Zeus in the Valley of the Temples, reassembled and displayed alongside the carved head of another such giant. The museum is equally celebrated for its outstanding collection of Greek painted vases, among the finest in Italy, including Attic black-figure and red-figure pottery and the renowned krater depicting an Amazonomachy, as well as the elegant marble Ephebe of Agrigento, a classical statue of a youth. Further rooms display votive terracottas, architectural fragments, sculpture, coins and inscriptions, together with a notable section on the necropoleis and burial customs of the ancient city. The presentation, set partly around the historic cloister, places the objects in the context of the temples just down the hill, so that visitors can connect the architectural fragments and statuary in the museum with the standing monuments outside. As the key interpretive centre for one of the greatest classical sites in the Mediterranean, the museum is an essential part of any visit to Agrigento.