Ars Aedificandi

ARS AEDIFICANDI. The Construction Site in the Classical World is an exhibition that was created with the stated goal of engaging the public in understanding the techniques and processes that were carried out in ancient times to erect the temples of Selinunte.
The exhibition project really wants to showcase the heart of the building process, and thus starts from where the building materials with which the temples would have been realized were extracted. The exhibition begins in the Cave of Cusa, active since the 6th century B.C. and hastily abandoned when Hannibal's army was first sighted.

An exhibition therefore of great educational and documentary value, recreating the construction sites set up to build the great Doric sanctuaries of Selinunte. In fact, retracing the descriptions of ancient sources and the iconographic descriptions of the Grand Tour travelers, visitors will follow the route of the so-called "rocchi" to the Archaeological Park, where 1:1 scale machines are positioned. Ten "machines" have been reconstructed on the eastern hill and the Acropolis, including a crane (12 meters high, reproduced in full scale), wagons and sleds for transporting stone material; measuring instruments such as the corobate (a Roman instrument used to measure the slope of the ground).

Produced and organized by MondoMostre in collaboration with the Archaeological Park of Selinunte, Cave di Cusa and Pantelleria, directed by Felice Crescente, and promoted by the Sicilian Region, Department of Cultural Heritage and Sicilian Identity, the exhibition has a strong scientific committee.