The humble Englishman who uncovered a civilisation…
Buried for decades, the name of amateur archaeologist Alexander Hardcastle is finally being restored... just like the stunning Ancient Greek city he unearthed while recuperating from the First World War
IT WAS one of the archaeological finds of the 20th century and its recognition and restoration by a retired British Army officer turned amateur archaeologist stunned the world. In his own quiet way, Captain Alexander Hardcastle, an apparently ordinary man, accomplished something quite extraordinary.
In 1922, without any formal training, he started to excavate a remote, dusty and neglected patch of ruins near the modern city of Agrigento in Sicily.
Within a decade, he had uncovered one of the largest and most significant archaeological sites on the planet.
Originally from a well-to-do family in London, the Englishman spent a decade pouring his entire fortune – an estimated one million lira, equivalent to £650,000 today – into restoring to its former glory the spectacular Valley of the Temples.
His game-changing find 100 years ago provided so much hitherto unknown information that it transformed the way we viewed Ancient Greek civilisation.
The Valley of the Temples is now a Unesco World Heritage Site. Dating from the 5th century BC and covering 3,950 acres, this enormously valuable area encompasses seven temples, city walls, an entry gate, an agora (open meeting area), a Roman forum, necropoli and sanctuaries.
On holiday in Sicily in 1921, while recuperating from his service in the First World War as a captain in the Royal Engineers, Hardcastle fell in love with the island as he explored the unexcavated ruins of the Valley of the Temples.
A troubled man who had previously been scarred by his experiences in the Boer War, Hardcastle resolved there and then to escape the social confines of England. He moved to the Villa Aurea close to the ruins in Agrigento and began unearthing the storied site in collaboration with the Italian archaeologist Pirro Marconi.
The centrepiece of his iconic discovery is the now world-renowned Temple of Heracles. It has eight beautifully preserved columns that have adorned more postcards than Italians have had hot pizzas. But the pair also renovated and revealed the Greek temples of Akragas and the original city walls.
AT FIRST, however, the Italian authorities were suspicious of him. Hardcastle’s biographer Alexandra Richardson, author of Passionate Patron about the “quintessential Italophile”, told the Express: “To begin with, the authorities thought Hardcastle might be stirring up trouble. It was all too strange for someone to be going to do this in Agrigento. And why was he giving away his money like there was no tomorrow? But in the end they couldn’t make head nor tail of this man, so they just gave up and let him be.”
Following his discovery, Hardcastle was as famous as the celebrated Howard Carter, who excavated the treasures of Tutankhamun in Egypt, or Arthur Evans, who discovered the palace of Knossos in Crete.
His work turned him into an international sensation and he was given the prestigious award of Commander of the Order of the Crown of Italy. Such was Hardcastle’s renown that he was visited at the dig by both the King of Italy and Mussolini, for whom the archaeologist had no time whatsoever.
The British newspapers heaped praise on Hardcastle.
On April 21, 1924, The Times lauded the archaeologist for his successful restoration of the Temple of Heracles, and noted that: “Hardcastle was warmly congratulated on his gift to Italy.” He was rightly acclaimed for his astonishing archaeological donation to the world. What is even more impressive was that his work was entirely selfless.
“There was no agenda for Hardcastle. He didn’t want anything out of it. It was simply his mission in life to restore those temples,” explains Richardson.
“But he didn’t just do that. He also reinforced all the protective walls around the Valley of the Temples site. He uncovered a lot of the original Greek paving and restored a lot of other minor temples as well.
“In the modern town of Agrigento, he financed a whole restructuring of the dilapidated archaeological museum to house his finds. And he brought water in for the farmers and their animals.” Hardcastle, who was eager to keep the site pristine, “also hated billboards. They were starting to put up billboards and he had them all torn down! So yes, he had quite a vision.And he was a real altruist.” In 1929, however, disaster struck.
The Wall Street crash of that year hit Hardcastle very hard indeed. The fortune he had inherited from the family’s brewery business evaporated overnight.
Having been left penniless, he sold all of his possessions and borrowed money from friends in an attempt to keep his excavations going. Even then the archaeologist could not afford to carry on with the dig. He was forced to sell the Villa Aurea.
Deeply depressed, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital in Agrigento.
There he endured a severe mental breakdown. The post-traumatic stress he had suffered serving in the BoerWar 32 years earlier returned with a vengeance.
He started having terrible hallucinations from his time in South Africa, claiming that he had faked sickness there in order to be sent back to England. He raved that he should have been tortured as he had shown “the white feather”, a sign of extreme
‘So unassuming was Hardcastle that when the King of Italy came to see him, he stayed at home’
cowardice. All of which was patently delusional nonsense.
Gripped by serious mental illness, Hardcastle passed away at the hospital on June 27, 1933, aged just 60. Fittingly, he was buried in the local Agrigento cemetery overlooking the Greek remains that he had returned to the world.
The stunning Valley of the Temples is a site for the ages, and generations to come will be able to enjoy its splendours, thanks to Hardcastle’s efforts.
Today, however, he is virtually unknown. Despite his ground-breaking achievements, he has simply been written out of the history books. He is a forgotten great British hero. The one who got away. So, just why has this visionary archaeologist, who bequeathed to us the greatest Ancient Greek site in history, been so cruelly neglected over the last century?
One reason is that, unlike other more headline-grabbing archaeologists of the time, he was fundamentally modest.A quintessential Englishman, he played down his achievements and shunned publicity. In contrast to, say, the showman Carter, Hardcastle was not followed wherever he went by his own personal journalist and photographer, relaying his discoveries to an avid global audience.
Richardson says: “It was a question of style. Other archaeologists were better selfpublicists. I went to Carter’s hotel room in Egypt where he got all the journalists together to broadcast his discovery. That was not Hardcastle’s style.”
A good example of Hardcastle’s essentially humble nature came when he was granted the accolade of the Commander of the Order of the Crown of Italy. He greeted it with characteristic self-deprecation.
“I prefer continuing my work in Italy without any official fuss,” he wrote.
“The honour is almost too much, but I hope to have the pleasure of collaborating on behalf of Agrigento over many years to come. The decoration seems like too high an honour – unless you count the building of two public lavatories, my masterpiece!”
Richardson adds: “He was a retiring sort of person. He was very self-effacing. It suited him that his villa was within a compound, so he was really closed off. He liked to keep it that way.” Likewise, Hardcastle’s reaction to the King of Italy’s visit was typically unassuming. He didn’t want to make a song and dance about it.
“He could have gone down to the harbour to meet the King when he arrived, but he didn’t,” says Richardson. “He stayed at home, so the King came to him. Hardcastle didn’t want to be celebrated in any way.”
NOW, at last, over a century after he first set foot on Sicily, Hardcastle’s splendid achievements are beginning to be recognised. Richardson’s book is helping to return the archaeologist to public attention.
In addition, a popular exhibition entitled Quantum Man: There Is No Future Without Memory by the highly regarded Italian sculptor Gianfranco Meggiato was recently held at the Valley of the Temples.
The artist was inspired by the British archaeologist, explaining: “When I heard of the sad fate of Alexander Hardcastle – an English archaeologist by now almost forgotten and ignored by most – I felt moved to find a way to honour him and restore his reputation, since it was in large part thanks to his passion and generosity that the Valley of Temples came to life a second time and became the Unesco World Heritage Site it is today.”
A piazza and a street in Agrigento are also named after Hardcastle.
Every year, members of the Alexander Hardcastle Foundation organise a ceremony marking the anniversary of his death at his graveside.A bronze bust of him also stands in the grounds of the Villa Aurea, which is now a museum.
So there is a glimmer of hope that Hardcastle will finally be accorded the acclaim he so richly deserves. In her book, Richardson concludes: “Disgorged by an army of buses, over 650,000 visitors stream through the gates of theValley of theTemples every year.
“The townspeople there have an even more enduring spectacle before them every single night of their lives: as the sun goes down over Agrigento and the breath-taking lights are switched on, illuminating column after column built by their very own ancestors millennia ago, it is hoped that a thought is spared for the ascetic Englishman who was once in their midst.”
Alexander Hardcastle may be gone, but his name has been rescued from obscurity.
●●Passionate Patron: The Life of Alexander Hardcastle And The Greek Temples of Agrigento by Alexandra Richardson (Archaeopress, £14.99) is out now. For free UK delivery on orders over £12.99, call Express Bookshop on 01872 562310 or order via expressbookshop.com