Agrigento, all set to raise the telamon of the Temple of Olympian Zeus

On Thursday, Feb. 29, at 11 a.m., one of the 38 telamons that supported the temple of Zeus Olympius in the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento will once again be erected and stand guard from its 8-meter height over the millennial Hellenic history of this land. This stone giant that lay in pieces in the valley will return to its original features after a long work of study and assembly of the stone blocks: in fact, the statue is not a copy like the previous one but is made using the various and different original blocks that lay broken down inside the archaeological park

This majestic colossus dating back to the fifth century B.C. represents the figure-symbol of the power of Zeus, who, according to myth, forced the defeated giants to bear eternally the weight of the temple erected in his honor. By now already positioned in verticalem awaits 11 a.m. Feb. 29 to be unveiled and freed from the10-meter-high corten steel scaffolding that erected and now supports it. It will return to the view of visitors by becoming the pivot of the project to musealize the entire area with plans to open it even at night with a significant and innovative lighting system to create ambience and suggestion. This also brings us closer to the recovery and revitalization of the area in view of the year 2025 where Agrigento will be Capital of Culture.

The project is the result of the excavation campaign directed since 2005 by Heinz-Jurgen Best of the Germanic Archaeological Institute in Rome, which with 500,000 euros received in 2014 started with the mapping of the blocks of telamons (which were already preserved since 1920) coordinated by Carmelo Bennardo, since 2023 director of the archaeological park of Syracuse. It was a long process of locating, restoring, studying, cataloging and assembling the various pieces and fragments scattered around the valley that led to the composition of the statue lying on the ground.

“Workers set up a scaffold on which a manual winch was set up,” the director of works explained to the newspaper Repubblica, “more precise than the electric winch with which measurements cannot be calculated to the millimeter,” having to carefully handle blocks that weighed about 700kg at a height of 12 meters. The statue will be supported by means of a thin Corten steel plate with brackets a few millimeters thick. The work was preceded by rehearsals with a wooden figure and a study of 18th- and 19th-century images where visitors drew or imagined the context. And thanks to an agreement with the University of Palermo, Repubblica explains, the room next to the altar, once used as a bar, should become a space in which it will be possible to admire the sanctuary of Zeus reconstructed through augmented reality. Visitors will thus be able to enter the sacred area of the sanctuary with a path leading to the imposing altar of Zeus.

Agrigento, all set to raise the telamon of the Temple of Olympian Zeus

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.