Selinunte Archaeological Park

The Selinunte Archaeological Park spreads across a wide coastal plateau near Castelvetrano on the southwestern shore of Sicily, where the Greek city of Selinous once stood. Founded by colonists from Megara Hyblaea in the 7th century BC, around 628 BC, Selinous grew into one of the most prosperous cities of Magna Graecia, controlling the frontier between Greek and Phoenician Sicily. Its wealth was expressed in a remarkable series of monumental Doric temples, conventionally identified by letters because their dedications are uncertain. The city's history was cut brutally short in 409 BC, when a Carthaginian army stormed and largely destroyed it, and a final blow came in the 3rd century BC, after which the site was abandoned and gradually buried, preserving an unusually complete record of an ancient Greek city. The park, covering some 270 hectares, is the largest archaeological area in Europe and is divided into several zones. On the eastern hill stand three temples, including the colossal Temple G, one of the largest Greek temples ever attempted but left unfinished, and Temple E, dedicated to Hera, which was partially re-erected in the 1950s and is among the most photographed monuments in Sicily. The acropolis, set on a bluff above the sea, contains the foundations and re-raised columns of Temple C, the oldest major temple on the site, together with the grid of streets, fortifications and houses of the ancient town. To the west lies the sanctuary of Malophoros, a sacred precinct dedicated to Demeter, rich in votive finds. Excavation has continued since the 19th century, and ongoing geophysical survey has revealed the buried street plan in extraordinary detail. With its temples rising above the Mediterranean and its vast extent of ruins and wildflowers, Selinunte offers one of the most atmospheric and historically complete classical landscapes in the western Mediterranean.