Sanctuary oh the Chtonic Deities and Temple of the Dioskouroi

Demeter and Persephone, respectively mother and daughter, patrons of nature's and humankind's fertility, were called Chthonic or Earth deities by the Greeks. Their cult was so widespread in Sicily that the ancient authors defined the island as "Zeus's wedding gift to Persephone" and Akragas as the "land of Persephone".

In the western part of the Collina dei Templi ('Hill of the Temples') there was a vast sacred area devoted to the cult of these two divinities. This area was divided into three terraces that surmounted the Kolymbethra, the 'wonderful pool' built in the 5th century B.C. which collected the waters from a complex network of aqueducts. The study of the artefacts recovered in the sacred area has allowed archaeologists to reconstruct the religious rituals that took place in this area from the foundation of Akragas (in the 6th century B.C.) till Hellenistic times (4th-2nd centuries B.C.) and that were mainly practiced by women.

The devotees reached the sanctuary through the Fifth Gate and probably bought votive figurines in the ceramic workshops just outside the city walls. They would then reach the terrace to the east of the gate with their offerings, from where they would begin their procession by visiting the small temples, the meeting rooms and the portico. The cult continued in the adjacent terrace, where there were small temples, enclosures and altars for the celebration of animal sacrifices, which were carried out amidst chants and surrounded by a smell of incense. After the sacrifices had taken place, the meat would be cooked and eaten by all the devotees. The procession would finish in the westernmost terrace (occupied by few structures and platforms with statues dedicated to the goddesses) by chanting, dancing and placing votive offerings (such as vases, lamps or terracotta figurines) in holes dug into the ground and sealed with stones. A small terracotta head recovered in this area and dating back to the 7th century B.C. is the oldest evidence for the cult of Demeter and Persephone.

In the middle terrace there is a temple, traditionally attributed to the cult of the Dioskouroi, the north-western corner of which was entirely restored in 1836 by the Commission for the Antiquities of Sicily. This temple built in local calcarenite is in Doric style (480-460 B.C.) and had a similar layout to the other temples in Agrigento, with six columns at the front and back and thirteen along the sides.

The 19th century restoration has compromised its original appearance, because architectural elements of different ages have been used to reconstruct the temple, as the lion-head-shaped drips which were used even though they are Hellenistic in age.

A little further south from the Temple of the Dioskouroi is the so-called Temple L, the only surviving features of which are: its foundation trench, some of the cylinders of its columns and the ruins of a sacrificial altar

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Testo di: Valentina Calì
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