B&B MiraValle Agrigento is just a 6-minute drive from the Pietro Griffo Regional Archaeological Museum, in the heart of Agrigento a short walk from the Valley of the Temples.
The Pietro Griffo Regional Archaeological Museum of Agrigento in Contrada San Nicola is undoubtedly one of the most important and most visited archaeological museums in Sicily. The building was designed by Franco Minissi and built in the 1960s on the hill of San Nicola, where the upper agora of the ancient city once stood and, more recently, the Ciantro Panitteri villa. The fusion between ancient buildings (Cloister of San Nicola) and modern structures is remarkable.
The archaeological museum displays as many as 5,688 finds which, arranged according to a chronological and topographical criterion, illustrate the history of the Agrigento area from prehistory to the end of the Greco-Roman age. The materials come from the collections of the Civic Museum, relating to the archaeological excavations carried out in the early decades of the last century, from private collections, or were transferred from the archaeological museums of Palermo and Syracuse. The most substantial part of the collections is, however, represented by the finds recovered by the Superintendency of Agrigento during the excavation campaigns carried out from the 1940s to the present day.
The exhibition is arranged over 18 rooms and in two distinct but complementary sections. In each room, bilingual explanatory panels (Italian and English) guide visitors and provide information on the materials displayed in the cases
Section I Agrigento the ancient city and its extra-urban territory
Room 1 Topography of the city and ancient sources.
Room 2 The prehistoric and indigenous phase, relations with the Greek-Mycenaean world and the moment of colonisation. Don't miss the Dinos with triskeles (7th century BC)
Room 3 Vase collections. Attic and Italiote pottery from the Greek necropolises of Agrigento. Don't miss the white-ground krater with Perseus and Andromeda (circa 430 BC)
Room 4 Architectural sculptures. Gargoyles with lion protomes, in terracotta (more archaic, 4th century BC) and in stone (from the 5th century AD onwards).
Room 5 Archaeological material, largely votive in nature, from the sanctuaries of the sacred areas of Agrigento: moulds, terracotta statuettes of animal and human form; female figures linked to the cult of Demeter and Kore in Sicily, terracotta masks, moulds for statuettes, plastic vases, heads of various deities, terracotta altars.
Room 6 Original statue of a Telamon from the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Panels and models document the various reconstruction hypotheses and the different theories on the position of these gigantic statues.
Room 7 Archaeological material from the excavations carried out in the nearby Hellenistic-Roman settlement. Stratigraphic survey and aerial photograph illustrating the urban layout of the city from the archaic Greek age to the Roman imperial age.
Room 8 Inscriptions.
Room 9 The coins of Agrigento: a numismatic collection of extraordinary interest.
Room 10 Home to theEphebe of Agrigento, a small masterpiece of the Severe style in its local variant, with soft, smooth surfaces.
Room 11 The Greek and Roman necropolises of Agrigento. Don't miss the Roman marble sarcophagus from the 2nd century AD with scenes illustrating the life of a child who died young.
Section II
Room 12 The sites of the archaeological territory of the provinces of Agrigento and Caltanissetta, from prehistory to the Hellenisation phase.
Source: The Valley of the Temples
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