The Temple of Zeus in Agrigento in all its glory

When visiting a temple, it is never easy to imagine how it once looked with all the columns and walls intact and all the painted friezes and reliefs. That’s why these short 3D reconstructions come in so handy.

The Temple of Zeus in Agrigento (ancient Akragas) is the largest ever built in Italy – once Magna Graecia – and one of the largest in antiquity after the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus and the Temple of Apollo in Didyma (see: The Valleys of the Temples at Akragas). 

It was built in 480 BC to celebrate the Battle of Himera when the Carthaginians were beaten once and for all by the Greek colonists.

The most remarkable feature of this temple is without doubt the huge Telamone figures (male caryatides) that stood in between the colossal columns of which only a rubble of drums has survived since most remains have been re-used for other constructions like the western pier of nearby Porto Empedocle in the 17^th century.

Thanks to the efforts of a local architect we now have images of what the Temple of Zeus looked like in the fifth century BC, outside and inside. The composition is based on the description left by Diodorus and on studies made by great archaeologists like Pirro Marconi.