Located not too far from Selinunte, the quarries were the first suppliers of material for the temples of the city and, more precisely, given the size of the blocks extracted, for temple G. The stone, a compact and resistant tuff particularly suitable for construction, it was extracted for more than 150 years, starting from the first half of the 6th century. B.C.
The quarries were abandoned in a very short time and so were the homes of those who worked there. This is one of the peculiar characteristics of the place where the huge drums destined for temples still lie half excavated.
Large cylindrical boulders scattered on the ground or still to be extracted (there are more than sixty) characterize this 1.8 km long quarry which extends from east to west along a ridge.
The slits still show the sign of the picks. In Selinunte, at the ruins of temple A, you can see examples of a finished capital, formed by a square base that served as a support for the entablature, by the echinus and by the terminal part of the column.
Quarries of Cusa
Address: Via Ugo Bassi, 37, 91021
Phone:
Site:
http://www.trapani-sicilia.it/cave_di_cusa.htmLocation inserted by
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