THE AREA SACRED TO APHRODITE AT CENTOCAMERE

Stopping on the rise which one arrives at immediately after passing through the gate which gives access to the archaeological area, one can identify with ease the two wings running from the hills to the sea of the religious building  called “stoà ad U”, with its sequence of spaces defined by stone walls and small limestone blocks, which are well preserved from its enlargement in the middle of the VI century B.C., while manifesting more defects in those of the original enlargement in the VII century.
Descending into the large central court, while there is no trace at ground level of the almost 400 small votive pits which have been identified, two structures are visible: a furnace which had been in  use before the Stoà had been enlarged to that point, and, further uphill, a small building from the late Roman Imperial period. Proceeding onwards the area is crossed by the loose foundation work for the walls from the Hellenic period (distinguished by the presence of reused column rocks), after which, there appears a tiled wall which has a sense of direction noticeably different from the others: this represents the separation plan for a brick enclosure wall on the hill side for the structure which, in the second half of the IV century B.C. substituted the Stoà ad U, and is called the Stoà ad Avancorpi because on both extremities it has two short wings which jut out towards the sea. Between this structure and the walls, there are both the remains of the base wall of the Portico which closed the Stoà on the hill side, and a double row of foundations of stones fixed with mortar – that which is higher up towards the hills placed above the boundary walls – probably belonging to a building for agricultural use from the Imperial Roman or Late Ancient period.