Amazing Agrigento

We anchored out off the small town of San Leone for a couple of days. While we were there, we caught the local bus to the ancient ruins of Agrigento that are built up the hill on a bluff that has a commanding view of the sea below. At one time, this was the fourth largest city in the known world. It started out around 581 BC as a Greek settlement that quickly grew to a population of over 200,000 people. The Greek temples survived as the population was conquered by a stream of armies that wanted the wealth of the city for their own. Certainly the crown jewel of Agrigento is the ochre colored temple of Hera. This is one of the extremely rare temples that has somehow survived the test of time to remain relatively in tact. There are several reasons why this temple has survived when so many others have not. The principle reason lies below the surface of the earth. Evidently this temple is built on hard rock that is floating on a layer of soft clay that acts as a shock absorber, cushioning it from destructive earthquakes. Whether Greek engineers understood this or not is still up to debate. Most modern scientists however think that there is a strong likelihood that they did. It is a beautiful temple with tall stone columns surrounding it. There are a few other temples scattered around, but none are as complete or as impressive. What has been added to the site is a beautiful sculpture of a fallen angel done in 2011 by Polish sculpture Igor Mitoraj. It is a giant cast bronze work that is reminiscent of the kind of work done by the Greeks. This magnificent angle has broken off limbs like so many other sculptures of antiquity and lies on it’s side as if it has fallen from a grand pedestal. The sculpture has grandeur and heroic proportions that even the Greeks would have appreciated. And hey if you are going to make a greek god, why not give him a greek god dick to go with his impressive body.