What to see in Selinunte, origin of the name and foundation of the city, oriental temples of the archaeological park and sanctuary of Malophoros, located less than a kilometer from the acropolis.
Tourist information
The name of the city of Selinunte, built in 650 BC. from Megara Hyblaea, derives from the type of parsley very common in these parts and called by the Greeks "selinon".
Among the Greek colonies, Selinunte was the one located further west and certainly the one where monuments characterized by greater grandeur were built.
Destroyed by the Carthaginians in 409 BC restored two years later by the Syracusan Hermocrates, he still received the last blow from Carthage in 250 BC, when the inhabitants were forced to take refuge in Lilybaeum.
During the Middle Ages it was the home of hermits and religious communities, while in the Byzantine era a violent earthquake reduced the admirable monuments to a pile of ruins that for centuries were used as building materials for the nearby country houses.
The city stood on an esplanade, placed between two valleys and divided into two joined parts as if from an isthmus.
What see
On the southern part, protruding over the sea, there was the oldest part of the town and the Acropolis, of which some temples remain.
On the north side instead stood the city proper, while on another esplanade to the east, stood the grandiose Eastern Temples.
The largest of these temples, one of the most grandiose constructions in Greek architecture, seems to have been consecrated to Apollo, a hypothesis confirmed by an inscription discovered in 1871.
The other times, since the name of the divinity to which they were dedicated is unknown, are named with letters of the alphabet.
About 800 meters from the Acropolis, where there are the remains of grandiose fortification works, there is the Sanctuary of Malophoros, where the funeral processions stopped for the necropolis of Manicalunga.
