Founded among the earliest of the Greek colonies, but unusual in that it was not (at least primarily) a Euboean colony, Megara Hyblaia provides an excellent case study for early colonization. This is partly because it has few layers of building, having been destroyed by Gelon in the 480s and rebuilt only in the Hellenistic period, and partly because it in an area not inhabited now, being near a large oil refinery (note the tankers in one of the pictures). The houses are particularly interesting, but there are a striking number of temples also.
One-room houses were the rule for the first colonists:
But these soon gave way to some larger houses:
There was a central reservation with a lot of religious buildings, including this early temple. You can see the column bases (and note that the building built on top of it lies at a different angle, which rather obscures it.
Only lizards live here now!
