What to see
The city's topography is complex and divided across distinct geographical zones. The southern acropolis, defined by two intersecting main streets, contains the substantial ruins of Temples A, B, C, D, and O. To the north lies the residential district, laid out on a strict Hippodamian grid, along with the Galera-Bagliazzo and Manuzza necropolises. Across the eastern river on a separate plateau stand the colossal Temples E, F, and G, adjacent to the Buffa necropolis. The fragmented state of these monuments is the result of multiple disasters. In 409 BC, a Carthaginian army commanded by Hannibal Mago breached the walls after a ten-day siege, killing 16,000 citizens, enslaving 5,000, and forcing 2,600 to flee to Agrigento. The Syracusan general Hermocrates briefly rebuilt the walls around the acropolis, but centuries later, a violent Byzantine-era earthquake reduced the surviving architecture to rubble, leading Arab settlers to later call it Rahl'-al-Asnam, or the village of pillars.
Visiting
Navigating the sheer scale of the 100-hectare walled city requires extensive walking. The ruins you explore today were completely lost to history until 1551, when the Dominican theologian and archaeologist Tommaso Fazello definitively identified the site. Although King Ferdinand III of Sicily decreed an end to the dismantling of the ruins for stone in 1779, formal excavations only began in 1809. Note that many of the most significant sculptural finds are not kept on site. The archaic metopes from Temple C, excavated by British architects Samuel Angell and William Harris in 1823, were intercepted by Bourbon authorities and are now housed in the Regional Archaeological Museum in Palermo, with other local artifacts displayed at the Civic Museum in Castelvetrano.
Our editors' tip
Keep an eye out for the wild celery still growing naturally among the fallen columns. This is the very same sélinon that inspired the city's name and was struck onto its archaic incuse square coins between 550 and 530 BC.