The Valley of the Temples is the familiar English name for the archaeological area south of Agrigento in Sicily. Despite the name, the main temples stand along a ridge and plateau overlooking the modern city and the Mediterranean. The regional archaeological park covers about 1,300 hectares and preserves parts of ancient Akragas together with its surrounding landscape of fields, olive trees and almond groves. The scale means that a visit is a walk through a broad archaeological territory, not a single monument.
Akragas was founded around 582 BC by Greek settlers from nearby Gela and Rhodes, according to Italy’s Ministry of Culture. It became one of the major Greek cities in Sicily and the wider Mediterranean. UNESCO’s description of the Archaeological Area of Agrigento emphasizes the Doric temples that dominate the ancient settlement, while noting that large portions of the city remain beneath today’s fields and orchards. What visitors see is therefore an extraordinary selection of monuments, not the whole ancient city uncovered.
