Doric columns of the Temple of Poseidon

Of the glorious Magna Grecia, of which Taranto was the undisputed capital, today remain the columns of the Temple of Poseidon in Piazza Castello.

Built by the Greeks in honor of the god of the sea in the 5th century B.C., there only remain two columns from the ancient temple of the Doric Order and a base with three drums, made from local carparo and carved in the same acropolis of the city.

Each measuring 8.47 meters high with a diameter of just over two meters.

A careful study of the area that encompasses the columns allows one to assume that the front of the temple faced the canal and that it was supported by six columns on the shorter side and thirteen on the longer side.

The profile of the capital, just as the conformation of the “fortresses”, which are very low and overlapping without a central pivot, suggest that they were made at the beginning of the 5th century B.C.  The presence of a small ditch near the columns and the markings present at the edges of them would suggest the existence of flooring and a wooden rise belonging to a first building of worship made of brick and perishable material, it was the work of the early Spartan settlers around the end of the 8th century B.C.

The ruins, which were restored in the seventies, were included in the Church of the Holy Trinity, in the courtyard of the Oratory of the Trinitarians, in Casa Mastronuzzi, and in the Convent of the Celestines.

It was archeologist Luigi Viola who, after careful studies, attributed the worship of Poseidon to this temple.

In the 10th century the remains of the temple would host a place of Christian worship, while from the 14th century a part of the area was used for productive activities with clay decanting tanks and small kilns.