Temple of Juno

At the eastern end of the Valley of the Temples, poised on a high rock, the columns of the so-called Temple of Juno rise towards the sky. Juno (known by the Greeks as Hera, wife of Zeus) was considered the Queen of the Gods and protector of weddings and childbirth. The Temple was built in the mid 5^th century BC when the Greek city of Akragas was at the height of its splendour. Its entrance, like all the other temples, is oriented towards the eastern horizon so as to catch the first rays of the dawn sun and illuminate the statue of the Goddess in the internal cell. In front of the Temple, raised in an elevated position, the foundations of the massive sacrificial altar they are still clearly visible. Its attribution to Juno derives from an erroneous interpretation of a passage by the Roman writer Pliny the Elder, which actually refers to the temple of Juno on the Lacinio promontory in Crotone. If it had ever been dedicated to Juno, given that she protected conjugal unions, it is easy to imagine that solemn wedding rites took place here: the ceremony was introduced by offering small sacrifices to the Goddess as a rite of purification, then the priest placed the right hand of the bride and groom on the ‘one on the other for declared their union. The ritual also required the groom to tie a belt around the bride’s waist, which would be untied upon return to the Temple as soon as she became pregnant. Whatever divinity was worshiped in this temple, its awe-inspiring beauty was immortalized on canvas by German artist Caspar David Friedrich in the 19^th century.

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