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B&B MiraValle Agrigento is 2 km from the Hellenistic-Roman Quarter.
Interesting remains of patrician Akragas villas and perfectly preserved mosaics can be admired inside the Hellenistic-Roman Quarter site, located in the area of S. Nicola.
The quarter was excavated around the 1950s by Pietro Griffo, who revealed an urban reorganisation of ancient Akragas dating from the 3rd century BC to the 5th century AD.
Its surface area is 10,000 sq m, where shops, aqueducts and taverns have been identified, along with over 20 houses, some with a large peristyle in the Hellenistic fashion, Pompeian-type houses, houses with a service corridor and houses with a transverse courtyard, the result of the ingenuity of the architect Hippodamus of Miletus.
Many dwellings are particularly refined, both for the traces of stucco and paintings on the walls and, above all, for the presence of mosaic floors, whose execution ranges from simple tesserae in opus signinum or tessellatum of the late Republican age to figurative representations of various kinds from the early centuries of the empire, with an iconography characteristic of craftsmen of African tradition.
The Hellenistic-Roman quarter also features a careful water system with wells, cisterns and drainage channels. In addition to residential buildings, tabernae have also come to light, with sales counters opening directly onto the cardines, among which one stands out, designed for the insertion of jars and amphorae.
Source: The Valley of the Temples, Explore Sicily
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