Forme fittili agrigentine: per una rilettura della produzione artigianale di Akragas

Abstract

The paper aims at analyzing the location and the range of production of the coroplasts’ workshops in ancient Akragas. While the amounts of figurines and reliefs belonging to several distinctive types, which were discovered during the excavations made in the ancient town especially in the sanctuaries, testify the success of the local workshops, a category of objects, the molds for figurines and relief decorations, is more revealing about the manufacturing districts and the repertoire at disposal of the craftsmen. Roughly 130 molds have been found till now at Agrigento. While some rather scattered pieces are not a proof of the presence of a workshop on the same spot (Porta I, ‘Punic Quarter’ near Porta II, ‘Hellenistic-Roman Quarter’ and S. Nicola district, surroundings of the temples of Concordia and Hercules), and/or need a more nuanced interpretation (area S/SE of the Olympieion), in the area immediately S of the ‘Sanctuary of the Chthonian Deities’, just before the city wall, the activity of an important workshop serving the near sanctuaries is well documented. Here the majority of the molds discovered show the evolution of the coroplastic art during 6th-4th centuries B.C. in relationship with the local votive practices.