Top 10 Greek Ruins Outside Greece
Greek colonisation, beginning in the eighth century BCE, planted Greek cities from the Black Sea to the western Mediterranean; Alexander's conquests then extended Hellenistic culture to Egypt, Persia, and the edges of India. The sites that resulted — Greek temples in Sicily, Greek cities in Afghanistan, Ptolemaic temples in Egypt — represent the reach of a cultural tradition that shaped most of the subsequent civilisations of the Old World. These ten sites are the finest surviving examples of Greek culture beyond the Greek mainland.
1. Valley of the Temples, Agrigento, Sicily, Italy
The Valley of the Temples at Agrigento (ancient Akragas) is the most impressive Greek colonial site in the world. Founded by Rhodian and Cretan colonists in 582 BCE, Akragas became one of the wealthiest cities in the ancient world. Its temple ridge preserves five major Doric temples in varying states of completion: the Temple of Concordia (c. 440 BCE, converted to a church in the sixth century CE, the best-preserved Greek temple outside Athens), the Temple of Juno (Hera), the Temple of Heracles, and the enormous unfinished Temple of Olympian Zeus. The UNESCO-listed archaeological park is open year-round; the Regional Archaeological Museum in Agrigento has the best collection.
2. Paestum, Campania, Italy
Paestum (ancient Poseidonia), founded by Sybaris around 600 BCE on the Gulf of Salerno, preserves three of the best-preserved Greek temples anywhere in the world, standing on the flat Campanian plain with unusual completeness. The Temple of Hera I (the Basilica, c. 550 BCE), the Temple of Hera II (the Temple of Neptune, c. 460 BCE), and the Temple of Athena (c. 500 BCE) give a vivid impression of a Greek sanctuary at different phases of the Doric tradition. The Paestum museum has the celebrated Tomb of the Diver (c. 480 BCE), a painted tomb chamber with unique figural paintings including a diving figure — the only large-scale Greek painting of the fifth century BCE known.
3. Selinunte, Sicily, Italy
Selinunte (ancient Selinus), founded by Megara Hyblaea around 628 BCE, was one of the westernmost Greek cities in Sicily and was destroyed by the Carthaginians in 409 BCE in one of the ancient world's most celebrated sackings. The site preserves five temples in varying states of preservation — some collapsed into dramatic heaps of carved column drums and entablature blocks — as well as the acropolis city and the sanctuary of Malophoros. Temple E was partially reassembled (anastylosis) in the 1950s. The scale and quantity of temple construction at Selinunte is without parallel in the Greek colonial world; the archaeological park is open year-round.
4. Syracuse, Sicily, Italy
Syracuse (ancient Syrakousai), founded by Corinthians around 734 BCE, was one of the most important cities in the ancient world — Cicero called it the greatest and most beautiful of Greek cities. The city's monuments span the entire Greek and Roman periods: the Temple of Athena (fifth century BCE, now the cathedral) retains its original Doric columns embedded in the cathedral walls; the Greek theatre (c. 470 BCE, rebuilt 238–215 BCE) is one of the largest in the Greek world and still used for performances; the Roman amphitheatre and the Ear of Dionysius (a limestone quarry with extraordinary acoustic properties). The Ortigia island nucleus of the old city is an exceptionally well-preserved ancient urban environment.
5. Cyrene, Libya
Cyrene, founded by Therans around 631 BCE in the fertile Green Mountain region of north-eastern Libya (ancient Cyrenaica), was one of the most important Greek cities in Africa and the birthplace of the mathematician Eratosthenes. The site preserves the Sanctuary of Apollo (one of the most important sanctuaries outside mainland Greece), Roman baths, a forum, an agora, and an extraordinary hillside necropolis with carved rock-cut tombs of exceptional quality. The Cyrene sculpture collection, distributed across several European and Libyan museums, is among the finest from any Greek colonial city. A UNESCO World Heritage Site; currently inaccessible due to Libyan political instability.
6. Ai Khanum, Afghanistan
Ai Khanum (Tocharian for Lady Moon) on the Amu Darya River in northern Afghanistan is the easternmost known Greek city, the probable Alexandria on the Oxus established by Alexander the Great or Seleucus I around 300 BCE. French excavations by Paul Bernard between 1964 and 1978 revealed a city with a Greek gymnasium, a theatre, a hero shrine with Greek-inscribed maxims from Delphi, and palace architecture combining Greek and Bactrian traditions. The site was substantially damaged during the Afghan civil war and by looting after 1989. It represents the furthest extent of Hellenistic urban culture into Central Asia.
7. Jerash (Gerasa), Jordan
Gerasa was a Decapolis city in ancient Transjordan with a fully elaborated Hellenistic and Roman urban plan. The Oval Forum (a unique oval-shaped public square), the colonnaded cardo and decumanus, the South Theatre, and the temples of Artemis and Zeus are all exceptionally well preserved. While the city was substantially built and decorated in the Roman period, its foundation is Greek (the Hellenistic settlement of Antioch on the Chrysorrhoas) and its urban form embodies the Hellenistic grid planning tradition. One of the best-preserved provincial cities in the former Hellenistic world; accessible from Amman, Jordan.
8. Pergamon (Bergama), Turkey
Pergamon, the capital of the Attalid Kingdom (282–133 BCE), was one of the most important Hellenistic cities in the world and a major cultural centre — its library was said to be second only to that of Alexandria. The Pergamon Altar (now in Berlin's Pergamon Museum) was the most elaborate Greek altar ever built; the theatre on the acropolis hillside is one of the steepest in the ancient world. The Asclepion (sanctuary of the healing god Asclepius) was one of the most important medical centres of antiquity. A UNESCO World Heritage Site; accessible from the modern town of Bergama.
9. Ephesus, Turkey
Ephesus, one of the greatest Greek and Roman cities of the ancient world, was originally a Greek Ionian city subsequently dominated by Persia, then liberated by Alexander, and then rebuilt as a Hellenistic and Roman city of enormous importance. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, of which only one column remains) defined the site's religious significance; the preserved Roman city — theatre, library of Celsus, terraced houses with intact mosaic floors and frescoes, colonnaded streets — is one of the most complete in existence. A UNESCO World Heritage Site; accessible from Selcuk, Turkey.
10. Histria (Istros), Romania
Histria, on the Black Sea coast of Romania, was founded by Milesian Greeks around 657 BCE — the oldest known Greek settlement on the north-western Black Sea shore. The site was occupied through Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods; its Greek city walls, temenos (sacred precinct) with temples, and residential quarters document the life of a prosperous but relatively small colonial city at the edge of the Scythian world. The museum at the site has finds from three millennia of occupation. Open year-round on the Romanian Black Sea coast.