Museum Temples and Metopes - Children's Guide

We are children of a primary school in Castelvetrano Sicily and we want to invite you among the temples of the Archaeological Park of Selinunte and of theCave of Cusa and present you to the magical world of the Greek myths of Selinunte, through the metopes in which this population was portrayed.

The construction of the temple for the Greeks was a significant and important event because it was a place of worship and it shows the majesty and decorative research of the city.

The Greek colony of Selinunte, in its not long years of life, about two hundred years, wanted to show its majesty devoting itself to temple architecture: we will take care of the sculpture of Selinunte, where a school of excellent sculptors have realized several stories of Greek myths in the metopes of the temples.

Have you ever thought about where the people of Selinunte got the material to decorate their temples from?

At Selinunte the stone blocks came from quarries near Misilbesi Menfi, over 20 km from the city, where there is a appropriate material to be sculpted.

Our task is to describe the metopes. The stories depart from Greek mythology. The figures carved in the metopes are gods and heroes, giants, centaurs, animals and Amazzons that have influenced a lot of the Selinunte Greeks.

They are stories full of sacredness related to the Gods honoured at Selinunte and for which the temples were built.

Of course, not all of the metopes made to decorate the temples were found. Those that we will explain and describe you are all preserved and exhibited in the Regional Archaeological Museum "Antonio Salinas" in Palermo.

This guide is a useful tool for you to learn some historical information about the ancient Greek city of Selinunte and its beauties. It was prepared by some children that attend the Comprehensive Institute "Lombardo Radice - Pappalardo" Castelvetrano Sicily, under the coordination of professors Giuseppe Salluzzo and Angela Sanfilippo and takes part of the project: Sicily Cultural Heritage izi.TRAVEL coordinated by Elisa Bonacini, University of Catania. It will be the children, as digital guides, to take you to discover this interesting trail with its archaeological ruins.

This text has been translated by Vitalba Signorello with the collaboration of Angela Gisone. The narrator is Silvio La Fata: class IV A from the Primary School "Lombardo Radice".