• January 9, 2026 | 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
• Golden Gate 8, Lobby Level

6F: Twenty Years in Selinunte (Sicily): The Institute of Fine Arts–NYU and University of Milan Project in the Main Urban Sanctuary (Colloquium)

Organizers:
Andrew Ward, Fairfield University, Rebecca Salem, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and Clemente Marconi, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University

Discussants:
Ortwin Dally, Leitender Direktor, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Abteilung Rom.

Overview Statement:
Selinunte, the most westerly Greek apoikia in Sicily, has been explored since the 1820s, quickly becoming a site for discussions of archaic and classical Greek sacred architecture, architectural sculpture, urbanism, and cross-cultural interaction. Of particular interest over the decades has been the site’s main urban sanctuary, situated at the highest point of the southern urban hill (also known as the acropolis), itself the seaward facing projection of a larger plateau representing the city’s urban core. With major excavations by Cavallari and Gàbrici, revealing the sanctuary’s five temples, and architectural study and survey by Mertens, Helas, and others providing insight particularly into the area’s history after the city’s sack by the Carthaginians in 409 B.C.E., there seemed to be little reason to explore the precinct further in the 21st century.

This changed thanks to an initially limited topographical, architectural, and archaeological project on Temple B by the Institute of Fine Arts–NYU between 2006 and 2009. Test trenches around Temple B (ca. 300 B.C.E.) and its altar revealed untouched stratigraphy stretching from the building’s construction back to the foundation of Selinunte in the seventh century and further back into pre-Greek periods. Exploration of Temple B’s predecessor, Temple R (ca. 570 B.C.E.) started in 2010, has revealed intact construction levels, ritual deposits, and original floor surfaces with important implications for the history of Selinunte and broader Greek construction and ritual practice. Starting in 2023 the project (since 2018 a collaboration between the Institute of Fine Arts-NYU and the University of Milan) has turned to exploring the entire main urban sanctuary in its entirety, with major discoveries already made pertaining to the development of the sacred area, votive and dining habits within, and its transformation into a multipurpose space under Carthage’s control.

The six papers in this colloquium, presented by senior and junior team members representing the project’s multidisciplinarity, review the major research avenues explored over the past twenty years. Whether architecture, 3D reconstruction, ritual behavior, or object and faunal study, the multidisciplinary work at Selinunte continues to provide valuable insights into religious practice at a site that was simultaneously on the frontier of the Greek settlements abroad and at the heart of architectural innovation.