The acropolis of Gela, also called the acropolis of Molino a Vento, is the hill on which the ancient city of Gela stood. Inhabited since the Copper Age, it flourished most in the sixth and fifth centuries BC under Greek colonisation and preserves remains of archaic buildings, Greek-age temples and prehistoric tombs.
What to see
The oldest traces date from the first half of the third millennium BC, when the hill held a village of huts: four shaft tombs remain. In the Early Bronze Age there was another village of round huts in the northern sector, with spindle whorls, pottery painted in the Castelluccio style and a vase with seven clay horns used for ritual practices. After a long abandonment, towards the end of the eighth century BC a small group arrived from Rhodes; the stable colony was founded around 688 BC (other sources give 689) by Rhodian-Cretan colonists led by Antiphemus and Entimus, who built the first places of worship: small shrines without a peristyle, the most important of which, Temple A, dedicated to Athena Lindia, was found by Paolo Orsi under the foundations of Temple B.
In the sixth century BC the boundary wall was built to the north and the city was given a regular layout, with the east-west plateia and the stenopoi, the cross streets; Temple B rose, also called the Athenaion, of the Doric order and richly decorated with architectural terracottas: double-braid rosettes in the pediments, large polychrome gorgon masks, acroteria with horsemen and lion figures. In the fifth century BC Temple C was raised, dedicated to Athena, for the Greek victory over the Carthaginians at Himera in 480 BC; after the Carthaginian destruction of 405 BC other buildings rose, such as building XII, a temple of Demeter. With Timoleon the city was reborn in the second half of the fourth century BC; after Agathocles' conquest in 311-310 BC the site was abandoned, and final abandonment followed in 282 BC with the destruction of the city by the tyrant of Agrigento, Phintias.
Visiting
The acropolis is the hill of ancient Gela, the archaeological area of Molino a Vento. Little remains of the temples: of Temple B a course of foundation, of Temple C a column. The sources consulted give no opening hours or access arrangements: check with the Parco archeologico or the Comune. To the south, in the Bosco Littorio area, the remains of an emporium have been found near the mouth of the river Gela, where the city's harbour probably lay.
Our editors' tip
The refined taste of the terracottas of Temple B reached as far as Olympia: Geloan craftsmen clad the thesauros, the treasury dedicated by the city in the Greek sanctuary, with similar ornaments. The sources also mention many sanctuaries outside the walls, among them the Thesmophorion of Demeter in contrada Bitalemi, and a heroon for Antiphemus, founder of the colony.
