In a remarkable underwater excavation off the coast of Agrigento in Sicily, a team comprised of the Subacquei Nucleus of the Carabinieri Command, the Superintendence of the Sea, and the Diving Group of BCSicilia, a volunteer organization dedicated to protecting Sicily’s cultural heritage, has successfully recovered sculptural fragments believed to belong to the Temple of Olympian Zeus.
This temple considered the most amazing and bizarre of all Greek temples, was built in the ancient Greek city of Akragas (now Agrigento) by the tyrant Theron after his victory in the Battle of Himera in 480 BCE.
The discovery made about 300 meters from the coast and at a depth of 9 meters, includes a marble-carved piece depicting a prancing horse, a classic motif in Greek sculpture. Measuring 2 x 1.6 meters and 35 centimeters thick, this slab of Proconnesian marble is believed to be part of the temple frieze, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The BCSicilia Subgroup, led by engineer Gaetano Lino, recognized its potential value through pH๏τogrammetric studies in October, leading to its successful recovery.
This find is crucial in shedding new light on the grand construction from the 5th century BCE. The Temple of Zeus is characterized by its 38 huge atlantes, some of which can be seen today lying on the ground. It stands as an essentially Doric building with pseudoperipteral architecture, featuring no free-standing columns but rather semi-columns, seven by fourteen, engaged into a continuous wall. The intercolumni, spaces between the columns, held giant statues called Telamons or Atlantes, standing 7.61 meters high.
