The gymnasium in Agrigento is one of the most important, if not the most important gymnasium in Sicily and the western Mediterranean more generally, because of its size, design, and chronology. The building was excavated in 1960, 1991-1993, 1995, 1997, 2001, and 2004-2005. Results were published in preliminary reports by various authors (Griffo 1963; De Waele 1971; Moretti 1976; Fiorentini 1992, 1993-1994, 1997-1998.) and two final reports by Graziella Fiorentini (Fiorentini 2009, 2010). Fiorentini proposed convincingly that the gymnasium was built in the late Hellenistic period when the city saw a major monumentalizing transformation, but this cannot yet be substantiated by evidence. Stratigraphy and inscriptions suggest that the currently visible remains belong to the Augustan period, when the gymnasium was significantly remodeled, if not built. Despite extensive excavation and publications, several questions remain open: 1. Extension and design of the gymnasium, 2. Chronology, 3. Idiosyncratic features, 4. Urban context. The facts that few gymnasia/palaestra have been securely identified in the archaeological record of Sicily and other regions of the western Mediterranean and that none of them includes a race-track complex underline the importance of the complex in Agrigento (Trümper 2018, 2020a, 2020b). Therefore, it seems particularly worthwhile and important to further explore this building and to answer the above-mentioned questions. In addition, a small bath building that has recently been identified in a yet unexplored olive grove to the north of the Tempio ellenistico-romano will be explored. The Freie Universität Berlin, under the direction of Monika Trümper, began a new research project in October 2019, in cooperation with the Parco Archeologico e Paesaggistico della Valle dei Templi di Agrigento. This served to survey the terrain of the gymnasium complex and materials stored in archives. Based on this survey, a geophysical survey was carried out in October 2020 in the area of the gymnasium and in the area of the bath building with the aim to reconstruct the urban infrastructure in these areas. At the same time, an architectural survey was carried out in the gymnasium complex to include all structures that are currently visible in one plan. In addition, documentation and findings, stored in the archives and storerooms of the Parco, were studied. Until today, no findings have been published to support the chronology of the gymnasium. The findings will be studied in a future campaign for the crucial phases and contexts of the gymnasium to put the chronology on stable grounds.

Its size, design and chronology, make the gymnasium of Agrigento the most important in Sicily, and, the western Mediterranean, The building was excavated during the 1950-.60s, 1990 and the early 2000s, when parts of a complex of running tracks and a swimming pool were uncovered. Fiorentini proposed that the gymnasium was built in the late Hellenistic period, but the stratigraphy and inscriptions suggest that the remains presently visible date to the Augustan period, when the gymnasium was restructured, if not actually built. Today, several questions remain to be answered: the extension and plan of the gymnasium, in particular the existence of a _palaestra_, the chronology and the urban context. A project begun in 2019 by the Freie Universität of Berlin in collaboration with the Archaeological Park of the Valley of the Temples of Agrigento aims to clarify these uncertainties. In 2020, a geophysical survey undertaken in collaboration with the British School at Rome, identified a concentration of anomalies in an olive grove north of the _piscina_ where it was thought the _palaestra_ may have been situated. In 2022, four trenches were excavated, from south to north: trench 1 near the _piscina_ (6.10 x 5 m); trench 2 (9.80 x 4 m); trench 3 (13.50 x 15.70 x 6.50-9.90 m) in correspondence with the _stenopos_ delimiting to the west the running tracks and the _piscina_; trench 4 (4 x 4 m) in correspondence with the hypothetical crossroads of this _stenopos_ with a _plateia_, as indicated in the recently reconstructed town plan. Trenches 1 and 2 revealed monumental walls of limestone blocks on an east-west and north-south alignment. Their alignment, materials and construction technique puts them in relationship with the known walls of the running tracks and _piscina_. Although these walls could belong to a _palaestra_, they cannot yet be attributed to specific rooms. A cyma, found deposited in trench 2 could come from a peristyle courtyard. The paving in both trenches was 70 cm above the walkway of the _piscina_, which suggests that the “_palaestra_” was situated on a terrace that was higher than the running tracks and the _piscina_. As the newly-excavated walls are positioned on a layer of sterile clay without foundation trenches, it was not possible to determine their construction date. The continuation of the _stenopos_ was discovered in trench 3, flanked by walls of limestone blocks in which there were two entrances. Two different road levels in beaten earth were discovered and two pipes: one running NW-SE, made of terracotta tubes, was laid in the 18th-19th century; the other, running N-S, at the centre of the _stenopos_, was made of Punic amphorae and reused terracotta tubes. The road levels were 3-4 m above the floor surfaces found in trenches 1 and 2. The link between trenches 2 and 3, which are 12 m apart, will be clarified in the future. No road levels or walls were found in trench 4. Instead, there was evidence of repeated flooding suggesting the presence of a river in antiquity, situated to the N/N-W. If there was a _plateia_, it would be further south, attesting that the city’s plan was adapted to the topography.