Protohistory of Sicily

Le ricerche condotte sul Colle Madore, nel cuore della Sicilia centro-occidentale, hanno
messo in luce resti archeologici che documentano uno dei periodi della storia antica dell’isola più interessanti per le grandi trasformazioni culturali conseguenti la colonizzazione greca. La fondazione delle nuove città e il loro rapido sviluppo innestarono in tutta l’isola, dalle coste alle vallate più interne, un irripetibile processo di cambiamenti del tradizionale tessuto indigeno contribuendo a disegnare un rinnovato assetto culturale politico ed economico che inciderà profondamente nella storia siciliana.

Conca d’oro è il nome della fertile piana, compresa tra mare e monti, che circonda la città di Palermo per una estensione di ca. 100 km2, celebrata per la sua feracità sin dalla antichità classica. Il presente studio intende delineare la storia del toponimo, indagando le implicazioni linguistiche e culturali ad esso connesse. Attestato come Co(n)ca  aurea nella temperie di rinnovamento culturale che investe la città di Palermo intorno al 1470, il toponimo potrebbe celare una formazione paraetimologica ibrida arabo-latina, in analogia ad altri casi siciliani già noti (es. Mongibello).

In the last decade the investigation of handmade pottery (“impasto”) in the Phoenician
sites of Western and Central Mediterranean received a noteworthy impulse. Despite the
frequently incomplete state of preservation of vessels, the analysis of this class of
materials is retained to be suitable for ascertaining the influence of local populations on
the dietary habits of Phoenician settlements.
Motya, a Phoenician colony in Western Sicily, offers an exceptional set of data, made up
by the finds from the necropolis and in the Tophet, to which further materials found in
recent investigations of “Rome Sapienza University” Expedition must be added. The aim
of this contribution is focusing on the analysis of the archaeological record of this site, in
order to insert Motya in the Sicilian panorama and in the wider context of Phoenician
colonies.

This PhD thesis aims at investigating identity and interaction at the settlement of Monte Polizzo, Western Sicily during the Archaic Age. The study is based on archaeological material from the Scandinavian excavations at Monte Polizzo. It is one of the most fundamental, in-depth investigations of an indigenous sixth-century society. Previous research has mostly explored various avenues in order to define indigenous societies. Most historians and archaeologists have favoured interpretation grounded in the first historical document about the indigenous groups in the area. The document was written by the Greek historian Thucydides, 2400 years ago. The indigenous settlements in Western Sicily have accordingly been attributed to the Elymians. This dissertation aims at a more nuanced picture. The results from the Scandinavian excavations have been interpreted in relation to place rather than to static notions of culture. The archaic society at Monte Polizzo was a product of the dynamics between tradition, innovation and interaction. Inhabitants at the settlement exploited local, as well as foreign elements in order to create strong material expressions. This is evident in the ceramic tradition, in the architecture, as well as in the use of space. Materialities were fundamental in defining identities. Theoretical models from anthropological-, historical- and sociological research have been used to highlight the relationship between material expressions and human action. The imported artefacts at the settlement show that the society at Monte Polizzo was part of Mediterranean trading networks. It is particularly evident in a desire for wine drinking equipments. The wine drinking feast was particularly important as an arena for interaction between groups inside as well as outside the settlement of Monte Polizzo. Other features and objects at the site were clearly related to a sort of referencing back in time. This shows that many inhabitants at Monte Polizzo shared a historical consciousness. The society was deeply routed in time and space. This thesis demonstrates that a multi-dimensional investigation of object, social practice and interaction is desired in order to understand how the particular and the shared aspects of life interact in shaping identities.

THE EXCAVATIONS IN THE BRONZE AGE SETTLEMENT AT MURSIA, PANTELLERIA (TRAPANI). PRELIMINARY REPORT OF CAMPAIGNS 2001-2005. — The resumption of excavations in the Bronze Age settlement at Mursia (Pantelleria island) included the terrace along the coast (sector D) and inland (sector B). Based upon architectural features the dwellings were subdivided and identified as three main archaeological phases. In the first phase, semi-subterranean huts have an elongated oval shape, with a rounded or flat side constructed opposite to a pointed side. In the more recent phase new features with quadrangular or circular shapes appear, often aggregated in several rooms. The preliminary description of the dwellings subdivided by phase offers a general outline of settlement dynamics and architectural constructions. The chronology of the site fits into the late phase of Early Bronze Age, corresponding to XVII-XVI sec. a.C.

Dessueri. The protohistorical settlement of Monte Maio (excavations of 1993-2001) - Of the four hills forming the archaeological system of Dessueri, Monte Maio is the minor but also the most central. For its position it was home to a settlement belonging to the necropolis occupying the other three hills (Dessueri, Fastucheria and Canalotti). The hill has been inhabited from the Early Neolithic to the VII century BC. During this time the settlement alternated expansive phases on all the slopes of the hill and contraction periods, in particular on the southern and eastern slopes, and on the terrace which joins Monte Maio with Monte Canalotti. The oldest buildings date back to the Middle Bronze Age, to which belong two circular huts. From the Late Bronze Age the settlement assumed proto-urban characteristics. Belonging to the oldest phase (Late Bronze Age), only little remains are known. The following period (Final Bronze Age) is the one of more intense building activity, attested by the planning of a terracing system including monumental buildings. During a later phase (Early Iron Age) the buildings were transformed using the previous building techniques, however applied with a lower quality. On the last phase of the settlement, probably ended in the middle of the seventh century BC, is known a rectangular house.

"The Tyrrhenian Sea appears as a geographically well defined space, enclosed within the Italian coasts and the big islands. During the Protohistoric Age, therefore, this is the scenery of development for a mosaic of cultures whose some will produce the under-layer of great ancient civilizations. With the setting of the cultural, commercial and colonial nets, of archaic and then classic periods, native and far-away peoples here give their contribution to the building up of new complex identities, although joined together thanks to the shared vector of the navigations and of the exchanges. Their cohabitation on a territory more and more reduced by the economic tensions and by the early will of predominance, at the origin of the first international conflicts in the Western Mediterranean Sea, will arrive therefore very often to some worthy forms of syncretism and of melting, voluntary or forced ones. Therefore, Ligurians, Etruscans and other peoples of the Pre-Roman Italy, Sicilians, Sardinians, Corses, but also Greeks and Punicians have given a contribute, after a balance concept, continuously put under discussion, into writing almost four centuries of small or big stories, up to the arrival of the Roman world.
The aim of the international day of studies FERTIGE13 (acronym of Iron –Age-, Tyrrhenian –Sea-, Genoa 2013) is to make dynamic the net of the young researchers, gathering about a dozen of PhD students and PhD doctors (up to five years since the end of the PhD), from different nations, who deal subjects concerning the space and the chronology in this way defined for the meeting, with a special remark for the inter-disciplinary approaches. The lecturers will be invited to present some papers related to this subject, pointing out the setting within a context on an inter-regional scale and focusing on the concerned methods, in the optic to compare at the best the nowadays dynamics of research among the different institutions."

Congresso Internazionale di Studi - International Conference of Studies Catania -febbraio 2021

Scopo del Congresso è l'approfondimento delle conoscenze scientifiche e metodologiche, nonché l'aggiornamento dei dati sulla preistoria siciliana intesa come nodo centrale delle relazioni culturali e biologiche nel Mediterraneo, dalle origini del popolamento umano e animale al fenomeno della colonizzazione fenicia e greca.
La Sicilia, intesa come vasto arcipelago comprendente l'isola maggiore, con funzione di continente, e le isole minori che la circondano, e le masse continentali ad essa prossima come la Calabria a sud dell'Aspromonte o la penisola di Kelibia in Tunisia, costituisce lo spartiacque tra i due mari che compongono il Mediterraneo e un naturale collegamento tra Europa e Africa.
La natura di "ponte filtrante" di questo arcipelago, talora definito "crocevia", è archeologicamente nota dal XIX secolo, da quando Paolo Orsi impostò per primo i termini delle relazioni tra Sicilia e Mediterraneo orientale durante la preistoria. Ma è nel Secondo dopoguerra, con lo scavo sull'acropoli di Lipari di Luigi Bernabò Brea, che l'arcipelago ha dimostrato appieno il suo ruolo di mediazione nelle relazioni ad ampio raggio tra le diverse parti del Mediterraneo. Tali relazioni sono state suc-cessivamente approfondite, anche in convegni dedicati, che tuttavia non hanno mai focalizzato il tema nella sua globalità cronologica e geografica.
Il Congresso punta, pertanto, ad una analisi aggiornata e complessiva di queste relazioni, sia attra-verso l'esame di aspetti generali, sia mediante la conoscenza di fenomeni puntuali e circoscritti, per cronologia, per tema o per territorio.

Arkeologen nr. 3. December 2008 41 Fragments from a Mountain Society. Tradition, innovation and interaction at Archaic Monte Polizzo, Sicily. Christian Mühlenbock Disputationen ägde rum den 12 november. Opponent var Dr Tamar Hodos, Bristol. Västra Sicilien är idag känt för ...

The large cemetery at Monte Finocchito, in the middle Tellaro valley, about 35 Km southwest of Syracuse, is an excellent point of reference in discussions of gender archaeology applied in the context of indigenous communities in Sicily in the course of the early Iron Age (9th and 8th centuries BC).
The necropolis, explored by Paolo Orsi since 1892, consisted of several rock-cut tombs containing single or two inhumations and the grave goods, shows signs of variability in number and kinds of objects.
The excellent level of the archaeological record and the condition to integrate more information reported in the unpublished notebooks of Orsi give the opportunity to investigate some aspects of the female category, which seems to be better represented in terms of funerary implements and abundance of bronze artefacts. Certain variations among the grave good seem explicable in terms of status of some female individuals, who played an important role in the field of economic activity and in the textile manufacture. Moreover, the presence of some imported items from the nearby Greek colonies suggest the role played by indigenous women of high rank in the interactive process between native people and new foreign settlers.

KEYWORDS: Sicily, Early Iron Age, Necropolis, Textile manufacture, Bronze Artefacts