Sicily / Agrigento / Temples valley / Zeus temple

Temple of Zeus Olympian

Agrigento Temples' Valley

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This temple would have been one of the largest doric temples of history if a plundering by Carthage didn't stop its building.

It would have been undertook to celebrate the victory of Agrigento, about one century earlier, around 480 BC, again against the Carthaginians, at Himeria.
An earthquake completed the unfinished temple once and forever.
Its size was 112x56m, its columns had 20m height and colossal statues of 8m owed the temple : the telamons (a man with the arms raised), one of them is lying in the middle of the ruins.
Contrary to the traditional temples, the external colonnade was closed with walls between the columns.

One can notice some large U among the blocks of stone. They made possible to raise them while passing there a cord (and with an ancient crane).