Editing Selinunte (section)

===Gaggera Hill with the sanctuary of the Malophoros===
A path runs from the acropolis, over the river Modione to the west hill.
[[File:Koldewey-Sicilien-vol2-table11.png|thumb|left|250px|Plan of the Sanctuary of the Malophoros (Koldewey, 1899)]]
[[File:Selinunte malophoros4.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Megaron of the Malophoros]]
[[File:Selinunte malophoros3.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Temple of Hekate]]
[[File:Selinunte malophoros.jpg|thumb|right|200px|long drain]]
On Gaggera Hill there are the remains of the very ancient Selinuntine sanctuary to the goddess of fertility, [[Demeter|Demeter Malophoros]], excavated continuously between 1874 and 1915. The complex, in varying states of preservation, was built in the sixth century BC on the slope of the hill and probably served as a station for funerary processions, before they proceeded to the Manicalunga necropolis.

Initially, the place was definitely free of buildings and provided an open area for cult practices at the altar. Later, with the erection of the temple and of the high enclosure wall (''[[temenos]]'') it was transformed into a sanctuary.
This sanctuary consisted of a rectangular enclosure (60 x 50 metres), which was entered on the east side through a rectangular [[propylaea]] in antis (built in the fifth century BC) fronted by a short staircase and a circular structure. Outside of the enclosure, the propylaea is flanked by the remains of a long portico (''[[stoa]]'') with seats for the pilgrims, who left evidence of themselves in the form of various altars and votives. Inside the enclosure, there was the large altar (16.3 metres long x 3.15 metres wide) in the centre, on top of a pile of ashes from the bones and other parts of the sacrifices. It had an extension to the southwest, while the remains of an earlier archaic altar are visible near the northwest extremity and there is a square pit on the temple side of the altar. Between the altar and the temple there is a canal carved in the rock which, comes from the north, through the whole area, carrying water to the sanctuary from a nearby spring. Just past the canal is the Temple of Demeter itself in the form of a ''[[megaron]]'' (20.4 x 9.52 metres), lacking a [[crepidoma]] or columns, but equipped with a pronaos, naos and adyton with a niche in the back. A rectangular service room is attached to the north side of the pronaos. The megaron had an earlier phase recognisable only at the foundation level. South of the temple there is a square structure and a rectangular structure of unclear function. North of the temple, another structure from a later period with two rooms opening onto the inside and outside of the temenos forms a secondary entrance to the enclosure. The south wall of the enclosure was periodically reinforced to fight the subsidence of the hillside.
South of the propylaea, attached to the wall of the enclosure, was another enclosure dedicated to [[Hecate]]. This took the form of a square, with the shrine in the east corner, near an entrance, while in the south corner there was a small square paved space of uncertain purpose.

Fifteen metres north there was another square enclosure (17 x 17 metres) dedicated to [[Zeus]] Meilichios (Honey-sweet Zeus) and Pasikrateia ([[Persephone]]), much of which remains, but it is not easy to understand the various structures, which were built at the end of the fourth century BC. It consists of an enclosure wall surrounded by various types of column on two sides (part of a Hellenistic portico), a small prostyle temple in antis (5.22 x 3.02&nbsp;m) at the back of the enclosure with monolithic Doric columns, but an ionic entablature, and two others in the centre of the enclosure. Outside, to the west, the pious dedicated many small steles topped by images of the divine pair (two faces, one male and one female) made with shallow incisions. Along with them were found ashes and remains of offerings, evidence of convergence between the Greek cult of the [[Chthonic|Chthonic gods]] and Punic religion.
A very large number of finds came from the Sanctuary of the Malophoros (all kept at the Museum in Palermo): carved reliefs of mythological scenes, around 12,000 votive figurines in terracotta from the seventh to fifth centuries BC; large bust-shaped censers depicting Demeter and perhaps [[Tanit]], a great quantity of Corinthian pottery (late proto-Corinthian and early Corinthian), a bass-relief depicting the [[Rape of Persephone]] by [[Hades]] found at the entrance to the enclosure. Christian remains, especially lamps with the monogram [[Chi Rho|XP]], prove the presence of a Christian religious community in the area of the sanctuary between the third and fifth centuries AD.

A little further up the slopes of Gaggera Hill is the spring from which the Sanctuary of the Malophoros gets its water. Fifty metres downstream of it is a building once believed to be a temple (the so-called “Temple M”), which is actually a monumental fountain. It is rectangular in shape (26.8 metres long x 10.85 metres wide x 8 metres high), constructed of squared blocks and contained a cistern, a closed basin protected by a portico with columns and an access staircase of four steps with a large paved area in front of it. The building is in the doric style and is dated to the middle of the sixth century mainly by the architectural terracotta discovered there. The fragments of metopes with the [[Amazonomachy]], although found nearby, do not belong to the building, which had small, smooth metopes.
Another megaron, a few hundred metres to the northeast of the Sanctuary of the Malophoros, has been excavated recently.