Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for Sicily:

Naxos (Sicily): CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The earliest Greek colony in Sicily, founded by Chalcidians under Theocles (Thucles) about 734 BC. It lay on the east coast, south of Tauromenium, on what is now Cape Schisò. The adoption of the name of Naxos, after the island in the Aegean Sea, indicates there were Naxians among its founders. It soon founded other colonies at Leontini and Catana. After 461 BC, Naxos was in opposition to Syracuse, allied with Leontini (427) and Athens (415). In 403 BC, it was destroyed by Dionysius I, tyrant of Syracuse, and its territory given to the Sicels. Its Greek exiles at last found refuge in 358 at Tauromenium. Scanty traces of its walls are to be seen; there is evidence in the area for Neolithic huts, Bronze Age settlement, and a sanctuary area assigned to Aphrodite. Pottery is often distinctive in style, with Euboean and Cycladic reminiscences, and a potters' quarter (vicinity of Colle Salluzzo) with kilns, depositories, and antefix molds. Naxos coins (6th-5th centuries BC) carry a bearded Dioynysus with ivy, vine, and grape decoration, while later examples have his companion in revelry, Sinenus, who also on the local terra-cotta antefixes.
Sicily: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The largest island in the Mediterranean Sea with settlement from 10,000 years ago. It was colonized by the Greeks between 8th-6th centuries BC, with cities such as Syracuse, Leontini, Naxos, Megara, Agragas, and Selinus. At the coming of the Greeks, three peoples occupied Sicily: in the east the Siculi, or Sicels, who gave their name to the island but were reputed to be latecomers from Italy; to the west of the Gelas River, the Sicani; and in the extreme west the Elymians, a people of Trojan origin with their chief centers at Segesta and at Eryx (Erice). Sicily came into conflict with the Phoenician colony of Carthage early on and in the battle at Himera in 480 BC, the Syracusan fleet (Syracuse was Sicily's capital) beat the Carthaginians. Sicily eventually fell under the control of Romans, becoming the first Roman province, in 227 BC.
Addaura: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave in Monte Pellegrino near Palermo, Sicily, with engravings from the Upper Palaeolithic period. The main scene is of human figures and seems to depict an initiation or circumcision. It is attributed to the Romanellian culture of 11,000 years ago.
agate: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A common semiprecious silica mineral and a variety of chalcedony that occurs in bands of various colors and is somewhat transparent. It is essentially a variety of quartz and was engraved in antiquity. Its name comes from a corruption of the word Achates, a river of Sicily, where Pliny said the mineral was first found.
Agrigento: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: formerly Girgenti, Greek Acragas or Akragas, Latin Agrigentum; also Agrigagas
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A wealthy, flourishing Greek and Roman city near the southern coast of Sicily, Italy, originally a colony of Gela and founded by Greeks about 580 BC. The plateau site of the ancient city has extraordinarily rich Greek remains. There are extensive walls with remnants of eight gates and the remains of seven Doric temples, but there has been illegal construction in which the ruins were quarried, so little is standing where some of the buildings once were. Agrigento was sacked by the Carthaginians in 406 BC, a disaster from which it never really recovered. It was refounded by Timoleon, a Greek general and statesman, in 338 BC, but Agrigento was on the losing side for most of the Punic Wars. Agrigento returned to some commercial prosperity when textiles, sulfur and potash mining, and agriculture expanded. It was abandoned once again in the Christian era though areas were used as Roman and Christian cemeteries and catacombs. There is some evidence for even earlier settlement, possibly Neolithic.
albarello: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: plural albarelli
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A late medieval (15th-18th centuries) Near East, Spanish, and Italian apothecary pottery jar. It was made in the form known as majolica or with a fine tin glaze over typically blue designs imitating the forms of Arabic script. Its basic shape was cylindrical but incurved and wide-mouthed for holding, using, and shelving. They average 7 inches high (18 cm) and are free of handles, lips, and spouts. A piece of paper or parchment was tied around the rim as a cover for the jar. Drug jars from Persia, Syria, and Egypt were introduced into Italy by the 15th century and luster-decorated pots influenced by the Moors in Spain entered through Sicily. Spanish and Islamic influence is apparent in the colors used in the decoration of early 15th-century Italian albarellos, which are often blue on white. A conventional oakleaf and floral design, combining handsomely with heraldic shields or with scrollwork and an inscribed label, frequently occurs. Geometric patterns are also common. By the end of the 18th century, albarellos had yielded to other containers. Albarelli have occasionally been found in Britain and the Netherlands.
anchor ornament: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An anchor-shaped terra cotta object with a perforation through the shank. These were widespread in the Early Bronze Age of Greece and appear later in Sicily and Malta. Grooving, as if from thread wear, suggests that these objects may have been part of looms.
atlas: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: atlantes (plural) telamon (Latin), caryatid (female)
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: In Greek architecture, male figures which were so called for the story of Titan Atlas, in which humans were used instead of columns to support entablatures, balconies, or other projections. Such figures are posed as if supporting great weights, just as Atlas was bearing the world. The female counterpart is the caryatid, but it is not similarly posed. The earliest known examples of true atlantes occur on a colossal scale in the Greek temple of Zeus (c 500 BC) in Sicily. Atlantes were used only rarely in the Middle Ages but reappeared in the Mannerist and Baroque periods.
bossed bone plaque: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Objects of unknown function made from long animal bones and carved with a row of bosses -- circular, square, or oval ornamental motifs. Examples from Lerna, Troy, and Altamira date to the late 3rd millennium BC. The finest have engraved decoration also. A series from Castelluccio, Sicily, with outliers in Italy and Malta, are curved in cross-section and dated just before 2500 BC.
Carthage: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: (adj Carthaginian, Punic) Carthago; Kart-Hadasht
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A great city of antiquity founded, according to tradition, on the north coast of Africa by the Phoenicians of Tyre in 814 BC and now a suburb of Tunis. However, Phoenician occupation on the site is archaeologically attested from about a century later. The Aeneid tells of the city's founding by the Tyrian princess Dido, who fled from her brother Pygmalion (a king of Tyre). Until around 500 BC Carthage was one of three great mercantile powers in the central Mediterranean, together with the Etruscans and Western Greeks. Much of Carthage's revenue came from its exploitation of the silver mines of North Africa and southern Spain, begun as early as 800 BC, and from its role as a middleman in trade. Carthage was for many years in conflict with the Greeks, especially in Sicily. Carthage lost both Sicily and Sardinia to Rome in 241 BC at the close of the First Punic War. From an enlarged domain in southern Spain, the Carthaginian general Hannibal in 218 BC led his army across the Alps to victories in Italy. When Hannibal returned to Africa, he was defeated at Zama in 202 BC. Though humiliated, Carthage survived until it was destroyed by Rome in 146 BC, after having fought the three Punic Wars of the 3rd and 2nd centuries. Carthage was then reconstructed as a Roman city by Julius Caesar and Octavian. The Roman city prospered by shipping grain and olive oil to Italy. Carthage replaced Utica as the capital of the African province and it became the second largest city in the western part of the empire, after Rome itself. The Phoenician/Punic remains include the citadel, Byrsa, the Sanctuary of Tanit, and two manmade harbors (all pre-146 BC); the Roman remains are the Antonine Baths, odeum, theater, circus, amphitheater, aqueduct, and areas of streets and houses. Also on the Byrsa site stood an open-air portico, from which the finest Roman sculptures at Carthage have survived. The standard of living in Carthage was probably far below that of the larger cities of the classical world. In Roman times, beds, cushions, and mattresses were luxuries. The Punic language and its distinctive alphabet remained in use long after the city's destruction. After the breakup of the Roman empire, the Vandals took Carthage in 439 and stayed in control until the Byzantine invasion in 533. Carthage was the capital of the Byzantine empire in Africa until the Arab takeover of 698.
Cassibile: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Bronze Age settlement and cemetery containing 2,000 rock-cut chamber tombs near Syracuse in southeast Sicily. It is the type site of a Late Bronze Age phase -- Pantalica II -- of the early 1st millennium BC. The Pantalica culture was characterized by large urban settlements. Artifacts include a distinctive buff painted ware with plume or 'feather' motifs, c 1250-1000 BC, and a number of typical bronze types, including stilted and thick-arc fibulae and shaft-hole axes.
Castelluccio: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Early Bronze Age settlement and cemetery of rock-cut tombs near Syracuse, Sicily. Excavated by Orsi in 1891-1892, the cemetery contained several hundred tombs used for collective burial and one tomb had a carved facade and several were closed by slabs with carved double spirals. The characteristic pottery was a buff ware painted with black or green lines and designs. Pottery shapes included splay-necked cups and pedestaled bowls. There were also bossed bone plaques, showing connections with the Aegean world well before 2000 BC.
Conca d'Oro: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Copper Age site on the plain around Palermo, northwest Sicily, where a number of rock-cut shaft-and-chamber tombs (a forno or oven-shaped type) have been found dating to the 3rd millennium BC. They were used for collective burial and the associated grave goods include pottery vessels and some metal tools and weapons. There is local incised pottery and a local imitation known as the 'Carni beaker', as well as imported Beaker pottery of west Mediterranean type.
Diana: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the island of Lipari, of the Aeolian Islands north of Sicily, which has given its name to a local Late Neolithic culture with dates in the early 4th millennium BC. Diana had a very distinctive pottery with a glossy red slip and splayed lugs or tubular handles, found also on Sicily and mainland Italy. The culture is associated with the last phase of intensive exploitation of the Lipari obsidian source.
Gela: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A colony in southern Sicily founded by Cretan and Rhodian colonists c 688 BC, whose inhabitants founded Acragas (now Agrigento) in c 581 BC. Gela was prosperous under the tyrant Hippocrates of Gela (498-491 BC), and his powerful successor, Gelon, who transferred his capital and half of the Gela population to Syracuse in 482 BC. Gela was refounded in 466 BC, but it was destroyed by the Carthaginians in 405 BC and abandoned by order of Dionysius I the Elder of Syracuse. It was refounded in the 4th century and again in 1233 by Frederick II, known as Terranova di Sicilia until 1928.
Ghar Dalam: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave site in southern Malta near Birzebbuga which has lent its name to the island's earliest Neolithic phase. The culture, dated to the late 5th millennium BC, is characterized by evidence of domesticated animals and cultivated plants and by the use of Impressed Ware similar to that of contemporary eastern Sicily (Stentinello). There was obsidian from Lipari. The earliest archaeological remains date from about 3800 BC. Neolithic farmers lived in caves like those at Dalam or villages like Skorba (near Nadur Tower).
Grotta dell'Uzzo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave site of northwest Sicily with Mesolithic (c 8000-6500 BC) and Early Neolithic (c 6000 BC) deposits. The Early Neolithic contained cardial impressed ware, domesticated animal bones, and traces of wheat and barley. It was followed by Middle Neolithic layers with Stentinello and painted Masseria La Quercia ware and then dark Diana wares of the Late Neolithic. It may be one of the earliest Neolithic sites of the central Mediterranean.
Impressed Ware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: The earliest Neolithic pottery of the Mediterranean area, with decoration impressed into the clay by sticks, combs, fingernails, or seashells, from before 6000 BC to around 4000 BC (though till later in North Africa). The pottery itself was characterized as having simple round-bottomed shapes. The serrated edge of the cardium shell was particularly popular in the western area and it is also known as Cardial Ware. Before c 5000 BC the ware is found mainly in caves or rock shelters or shell midden sites, where it is associated with hunting-gathering and breeding of sheep. Around 5000 BC, crop cultivation was introduced and large settled villages sprang up. Other types of pottery are found alongside Impressed Ware at this stage, including fine red painted ware in Italy, Stentinello Ware in Sicily, and Ghar Dalam ware in Malta, which represent specialized versions of Impressed Ware. The pottery style may have originated in Asia Minor or even Yugoslavia (Starcevo culture).
Levanzo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small island off western Sicily, Italy, where fine engravings of animals have been found in a cave, Grotta Genovese. It belongs to the Upper Palaeolithic Romanellian group of c 10,000 BC and depicts horses, deer, cattle, and humans.
Lipari: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An acropolis site on Lipari island of the Aeolian Islands off the north coast of Sicily. Occupation started in the Neolithic c 4000 BC, when obsidian was exploited. In the Bronze Age, Lipari became an important trading center. Mycenaean pottery has been found dating to 1500-1250 BC. The remains of Hellenistic buildings indicate its importance in Classical times. The volcanoes have created is one of the finest stratigraphies of archaeological deposits anywhere. Later in prehistory, Lipari remained important because of its strategic position, which allowed communities positioned there to control trade routes through the Straits of Messina and up the west coast of Italy. The site was abandoned some time in the 9th century BC and not reoccupied until the foundation of a Greek settlement by a mixed group of Cnidians and Rhodians in the early 6th century BC.
Magna Graecia: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A group of ancient Greek cities along the coast of southern Italy; a general term for the Greek cities of southern Italy and Sicily. An important center of the Greek civilization, it was the site of extensive trade and commerce and the seat of the Pythagorean and Eleatic systems of philosophy. Euboeans founded the first colonies, Pithecussae and Cumae, about 750 BC, and subsequently Spartans settled at Tarentum; Achaeans at Metapontum, Sybaris, and Croton; Locrians at Locri Epizephyrii; and Chalcidians at Rhegium (Reggio di Calabria). After the 5th century, attacks by neighboring Italic peoples, strife among cities, and malaria caused most of the cities to decline in importance.
Malta: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Mediterranean island south of Sicily with a settlement of the impressed ware culture at Skorba dated to c 4900 BC. Further immigrants arrived from Sicily c 3500. These people from c 4000-2400 BC erected a startling and unique series of megalithic temples, some 30 still surviving, of sophisticated plan and construction. They are among the oldest human monuments in the Mediterranean basin. The major temple complexes, most of which contained two or three separate temples, were built in several phases over a long period of time. The temples are built of local limestone in Cyclopean masonry and are characterized by a series of apsidal courts or chambers arranged on either side of a central corridor opening from a monumental facade. The whole structure is enclosed by a solid outer wall and the space between this and the building itself filled with stone and earth rubble. They have a number of installations which are presumably ritual, including altar-like constructions, niches, and porthole openings. The temples are unique in form and construction and are in any case too early to be derived from any east Mediterranean stone architecture. They are now seen as a local development. The people of this time were succeeded by warlike immigrants, possibly from western Greece or Carthage (8th-7th c BC), who dug an urnfield into the ruins of the temples and built villages on naturally defended hilltops; it is to this period that the mysterious 'cart-ruts' belong. The island was finally brought under the control of the Phoenicians in the 9th century BC and conquered by Rome in 218 BC.
Milazzo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A town founded in 716 BC by colonists from Zankle (Messina). It was taken by the Athenians in 426 BC and by the Syracusan tyrant Agathocles in 315 BC. The consul Gaius Duilius won the first Roman naval victory over the Carthaginians in the bay in 260 BC. It is located on the northeast coast of Sicily, facing the Aeolian Islands, and demonstrates close cultural connections with the prehistoric sequence on these islands. It was occupied throughout the Bronze Age; the Middle Bronze Age culture had a cemetery of pithos burials (with the dead placed in large jars in the crouched position) while in the succeeding Late Bronze Age phase (Ausonian culture) had a cemetery of urnfield type, characterized by cremations in urns and bronzes of local Urnfield (Proto-Villanovan) type. The old town on a hill above is partly surrounded by Spanish walls from the 16th century and contains a 13th-century Norman castle.
Monreale Cathedral: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A magnificent cathedral, in northwestern Sicily, Italy, constructed between 1174-1189 by William II, the third Norman king of Sicily. Little now remains of the monastic buildings except the splendid cloister (with 216 marble columns) adjacent to the cathedral. The cathedral is one of the richest and most beautiful churches in Italy, combining Norman, Byzantine, Italian, and Saracen styles. Particularly notable is the interior mosaic decoration, one of the largest in existence. The subjects of the mosaics include an Old Testament cycle, the miracles of Christ, the life of Christ, and the lives of the saints Peter and Paul. It was created by a group of craftsmen trained in Byzantium.
mosaic: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: mosaic work
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A technique of decoration used mainly on floors or walls involving the setting of small colored fragments of stone, tile, mineral, shell, or glass, each called a tessera (plural tesserae), in a cement or adhesive matrix. Mosaic also refers to a tesselated area, often of complex designs and, possibly, inscriptions. Mosaic floors were made from small squares, triangles, or other regular shapes up to an inch in size. They were laid in cement to form designs, figures of animals, or classical figures representing the seasons, etc. Old limestone would be used for white and various reds, browns, or grays from baked clays. Glass, too, was sometimes incorporated. The earliest known mosaics date from the 8th century BC and are made of pebbles, a technique refined by Greek craftsmen in the 5th century BC. Greek mosaics were simple pebble floors and then became more complex and sophisticated under Macedonian kings. Mosaics are known from Pompeii and Rome, Tivoli, Aquileia, and Ostia -- as well as Africa, Antioch, Sicily, and Britain. Under the Roman Empire, the achievements of the 5th-6th century Byzantine artists at Ravenna are impressive. An excellent collection of mosaics from Pompeii may be seen in the Mueo Nazionale at Naples, and a good selection of Imperial Roman provincial work may be seen at the Museum of Le Bardo, outside modern Tunis, Tunisia. Pre-Columbian American Indians favored mosaics of semiprecious stones such as garnet and turquoise and mother-of-pearl. These were normally used to encrust small objects such as shields, masks, and cult statues. Mosaic as an art form has most in common with painting. It represents a design or image in two dimensions. It is also, like painting, a technique appropriate to large-scale surface decoration.
Motya: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: modern San Pantaleo
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the three principal centers of Carthaginian Sicily (the other two were at Panorums (Palermo) and Soloeis (Soluntum). It was a Phoenician harbor town on a tiny island off the extreme west of Sicily. The settlement was founded in the 8th century BC and was joined to the mainland by a causeway. Excavations have revealed stretches of walls with gates and towers, and artificial dock (cothon), a temple, a sanctuary (tophet), houses, and cemeteries. Much Greek pottery has also been found at Motya. After the destruction of the city by Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse in 397 BC, the inhabitants left to colonize nearby Lilybaeum.
Naxos (Greece): CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The largest of the Greek Cyclades islands in the Aegean Sea and an important center for the so-called Cycladic culture of the Aegean Early Bronze Age, late 4th-2nd millennium BC. Mycenaean, Protogeometric, and Geometric periods are also well represented. In the period of classical Greece, Naxos has a relatively insignificant political history, and is better known for its wines and was a center of worship of the god Dionysus. Naxos marble was used for the sculpture of monumental figures and the island also supplied the emery with which to polish the marble. The Cycladic period has left numerous graves and examples of the characteristic Cycladic idols. An isolated marble door frame on the Palatia hill is the cella door of a 6th-century BC temple, while near Sangri lies the site of a square temple. For the ancient quarries there is no lack of evidence, particularly for the practice of cutting large statues in situ. There are several unfinished figures, notably a colossal archaic statue, male and with beard -- possibly a representation of Dionysius. During the 6th century BC the tyrant Lygdamis ruled Náxos in alliance with the tyrant Peisistratus of Athens. In 490 the island was captured by the Persians and treated with severity; Náxos deserted Persia in 480, joining the Greeks at the Battle of Salamis and then joining the Delian League. After revolting from the league in 471, Náxos was immediately captured by Athens, which controlled it until 404. In the 8th century, Naxos is said to have combined forces with Chalcis in a colonizing initiative to Sicily, where a colony of the same name was founded. In 1207 AD, a Venetian captured Náxos, initiating the duchy of Náxos.
nephrite: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: The more common form of jade, an iron calcium magnesium silicate of the amphibole mineral group. It is whitish to dark green in color, though it can be blue and black, prized as an ornamental stone for carving and jewelry. Jadeite is tougher and more compact. Sources of the material are known in China, Siberia, Pakistan, New Zealand, the Philippines, New Guinea and Australia, Poland, the Swiss Alps, Italy and Sicily, and North and South America.
Normans: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Vikings, or Norsemen, who settled in France; the population of the duchy of Normandy in northern France, a mixed race descending from the Franks and 10th-century Norse settlers of Denmark, Norway, and Iceland. In AD 1066, their leader, William of Normandy, conquered England, then Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. The Normans also conquered Sicily and southern Italy in a volatile period that began in 1063. These military feats were consolidated by the strength of the Norman feudal aristocracy and their skill in erecting strong, expedient fortifications ranging from motte and bailey earthworks to substantial stone castles. The Normans were also the main force behind the Crusades, which began in the 11th century AD. They promoted the French language and French culture, and the Romanesque style of architecture. By 1200 the Norman conquerors had been absorbed into the countries they ruled, but many of their institutions lasted into the late Middle Ages. Despite their eventual conversion to Christianity, their adoption of the French language, and their abandonment of sea-roving for Frankish cavalry warfare in the decades following their settlement in Normandy, the Normans retained many of the traits of their piratical Viking ancestors. They were restless, reckless, and loved fighting; they extended the practice of centralized authoritarian rule, feudalism, cavalry warfare, and religious reform.
obsidian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: hyalopsite, Iceland agate, mountain mahogany
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A jet-black to gray, naturally occurring volcanic glass, formed by rapid cooling of viscous lava. It was often used as raw material for the manufacture of stone tools and was very popular as a superior form of flint for flaking or as it is easily chipped to form extremely sharp edges. Obsidian breaks with a conchoidal fracture and is easily chipped into precise and delicate forms. It was very widely traded from the anciently exploited sources in Hungary, Sardinia, Lipari of Sicily, Melos in the Aegean, central and eastern Anatolia, Mexico, etc. Chemical analysis of their trace elements now allows most of the sources to be distinguished (especially by neutron activation and x-ray fluorescence spectrometry), so that the pattern of trade spreading out from each can be traced. Two dating methods have been applied to obsidian: obsidian hydration dating and fission track dating. In Europe, obsidian was exploited extensively from c 6000-3000 BC; after 3000 BC it generally went out of favor for everyday purposes (perhaps as a result of competition from metal tools) but it continued to be used for prestige objects in some areas, especially by the Minoans and Mycenaeans. Obsidian has been quarried and traded by western Melanesians since at least 19,000 bp, with the earliest-used and most important source being that at Talasea on New Britain. Obsidian was also an important trade item in Mesoamerica.
Palermo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Major city of Sicily, on the northwest coast of the island, which has been continuously occupied for two and a half millennia. The Phoenicians established a port of the site by the 8th century BC, and from the 5th century BC the city was controlled by Carthage. The Romans captured Palermo in 254 BC. The city decayed under Roman rule but prospered after AD 535, when the Byzantine general Belisarius recovered it from the Ostrogoths. The island remained in Byzantine hands until the Islamic offensive in 831. Palermo was prosperous when it fell to the Norman adventurers Roger I and Robert Guiscard in 1072. The ensuing era of Norman rule (1072-1194) was Palermo's golden age, particularly after the founding of the Norman kingdom of Sicily in 1130 by Roger II. Palermo became the capital of this kingdom and has some notable buildings from the Norman and succeeding periods. It continues to be Sicily's chief port and center of government.
Pantalica: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age site inland from Syracuse in southeast Sicily, occupied c 13th-8th centuries BC. The 5,000 rock-cut tombs which honeycomb the hillside around have yielded great quantities of material. Pottery and metal goods from the tombs indicate trading contacts with both mainland Italy and the Aegean. The characteristic local pottery is wheelmade, red-slipped, and burnished. Four phases run from contemporary with Late Mycenaean c 1200 BC to well after the first Greek colonies formed in the 8th century BC. At least one public building has been exposed: a large stone built structure described as an anaktoron or palace.
Pantano Longarini: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A large wreck of 5th-7th century found in the sea off Pantano Longarini in southeast Sicily. The vessel would have been about 45 meters long and 9 meters wide; the structural details of the boat have contributed to the study of Byzantine ship-building.
Pantelleria: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Small island in the central Mediterranean between Sicily and Tunisia. A fortified Neolithic village c 3000 BC has been excavated, with remains of huts, pottery, and obsidian tools. Of volcanic origin, it has a source of obsidian which was exploited in prehistory. There are tombs, known as sesi, similar to the nuraghi of Sardinia, comprising rough lava towers with sepulchral chambers in them. After a considerable interval of no habitation, the Phoenicians established a trading station there in the 7th century BC. Later controlled by the Carthaginians, it was occupied by the Romans in 217 BC. Under the Roman Empire it served as a place of banishment.
Phoenician: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Phoenicia
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Semitic people who lived in the coastal area of Lebanon and Syria from about 1000 BC, the cultural heirs of the Canaanites. They flourished as traders from their ports of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. They are crediting with founding Carthage and inventing the alphabet; the Greek, Roman, Arabic and Hebrew alphabets are all derived from the Phoenician. Even after their incorporation into the Babylonian empire in 574 BC, they continued to influence world politics, in the Near East through their fleets, in the west through their powerful colony of Carthage. They also established colonies in Utica, north Africa; Gades in Spain, Motya in Sicily, Nora and Tharros in Sardinia, and other settlements in Malta and Ibiza. Culturally their role as merchants and middlemen was uninterrupted until they were absorbed into the Hellenistic and Roman world. They are reputed to have circumnavigated Africa. They developed the alphabet to assist their commercial activities. They are not well-known archaeologically in their homeland, though there has been some exploration of their major sites; they have left few lasting memorials in the form of great works of art or monumental architecture. The Phoenicians engaged in a series of three Punic Wars with the Romans, which led to their ultimate defeat and incorporation into the Roman world in the 2nd century BC.
Porticello: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site of a shipwreck in the Straits of Messina between Italy and Sicily, c 440-430 BC. The cargo included lifesize bronze statuary, amphorae, ingots, ink pots, and fine pottery.
proto-maiolica: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A type of tin-glazed wares made in Sicily and southern Italy from shortly before 1200 until the 15th century. The appearance of these wares coincided with the importation of tin-glazed pottery from North Africa, particularly the Maghreb. The jugs and bowls were usually painted with various animals or coats-of-arms in the variety of colors before glaze was applied. The best-known proto-maiolicas are from northern Apulia; they were traded extensively to local villages and across the Adriatic to Yugoslavia.
Punic wars: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Three wars between the Roman Republic and the Carthaginian (Punic) Empire that resulted in the destruction of Carthage. These wars between Rome and Carthage took place in the 3rd-2nd centuries BC. The first (264-241 BC) was fought to establish control over the strategic islands of Corsica and Sicily. The second (218-201 BC) after which Carthage was forced to pay an indemnity and surrender its navy, and Spain and the Mediterranean islands were ceded to Rome. The third war (149-146 BC) resulted in the final destruction of Carthage, the enslavement of its population, and Roman hegemony over the western Mediterranean. Of a city population that may have exceeded a quarter of a million, only 50,000 remained at the final surrender. The survivors were sold into slavery; the city was razed, and the territory was made a Roman province under the name of Africa.
Rhodes: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Large Ionian/Aegean island, prosperous in Classical times as it was on trade routes from Greece to Egypt and the East. Minoan remains at Ialysus are evidence of early Cretan influence. With the collapse of the Minoan civilization (c. 1500-1400 BC), Rhodes became a powerful independent kingdom with a late Bronze Age culture. Rhodes was occupied by Dorians, mainly from Argos, c 1100-1000 BC. The Rhodian cities of Lindus, Ialysus, and Camirus, along with Cos, Cnidus, and Halicarnassus, belonged to the Dorian Hexapolis (league of six cities) by which the Greeks protected themselves in Asia Minor. The cities of Rhodes traded throughout the Mediterranean and founded colonies in Italy, Sicily, Spain, and Asia Minor. Rhodes supported Rome during its war with Philip V of Macedonia. The island steadily declined after Rome made Delos a free port c 166 BC. During the triumvirate of Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus (43 BC), the conspirator Gaius Cassius plundered Rhodes for refusal to support him. Though it continued for another century as a free city, it never recovered its former prosperity; in about 227 BC a severe earthquake devastated the island. Excavations have unearthed a stadium, odeum, temples, and city walls. At its wealthiest and most powerful in the period c 323-166 BC, Rhodes developed a new form of house colonnaded court (peristyle) with one row of columns higher than the others; provided a grand entrance to the Lindos acropolis sanctuary of Athena, and produced sculptures of quality, including a colossus overlooking the harbor (which fell in the earthquake of 227 BC). Rhodes became important again during the Crusader period, when it was chosen for an important military base.
Rivoli: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A series of sites, including hilltop settlements, of Rivoli, near Verona in northeast Italy, which have provided the name for a version of the northern Italian Neolithic Square-Mouthed Pottery culture. As well as the characteristic pottery, the sites have produced pintaderas, and a fragment of copper -- early evidence of metal working in the area. There is also a medieval castle begun by Victor Amadeus II, king of Sicily and Sardinia, in 1712 on the site of an older structure.
Segesta: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Greek Egesta
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Ancient city of Sicily, north of modern Calatafimi, which was the chief city of the Elymi. The Elymi may have been of Trojan origin; they are archaeologically indistinguishable in the Early Iron Age (c 1000-500 BC) from their Sicanian neighbors. Segesta had a Greek culture, but it often sided with the Carthaginians against its Greek neighbors (mainly Selinus). Early in the First Punic War, Segesta massacred the Carthaginian garrison and allied themselves with Rome. It became a free city under Roman rule. Segesta ruins include an unfinished 5th-century BC temple and a Hellenistic theater. The city site is on the plateau adjacent to the theater. The surviving 5th-century temple, which stood outside the original city, is usually seen as a distinguished, but unfinished example; it has a colonnade, but no interior cella.
Selinunte: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Greek colony in southwest Sicily, traditionally founded by Megara Hyblaea in 651/628 BC. There are a series of temples of the Doric order with relief metopes in some. Fortifications occur on the acropolis and early material has been found on the temenos of Malophoros. Early Corinthian Pottery has been dated based on the colony's foundation.
Serra d'Alto: CATEGORY: site; artifact
DEFINITION: Neolithic village in Basilicata, Italy, on a hill defended by three concentric ditches. It has yielded a distinctive painted pottery of the same name, c 4500-3500 BC. Geometric designs with diagonal meanders and solid triangles are painted in black or purple-brown on a buff surface. A frequent motif is a zigzag line between parallels (linea a tremolo marginato"). Jars and handled cups are the standard forms and the elaborate handles are horizontal tubular with zoomorphic additions on the top. In the later phase a thin and markedly splayed trumpet lug was adopted from the Diana Ware of Lipari. The high quality of the ware and the fact that it most often occurs in graves and other ritual contexts suggests that it was produced for special purposes. It was traded over a wide area occurring in Sicily Lipari Lake Garda Malta and in central Italy."
Serra d'Alto pottery: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Neolithic village in Basilicata, Italy, on a hill defended by three concentric ditches. It has yielded a distinctive painted pottery of the same name, c 4500-3500 BC. geometric designs with diagonal meanders and solid triangles are painted in black or purple-brown on a buff surface. A frequent motif is a zigzag line between parallels (linea a tremolo marginato"). Jars and handled cups are the standard forms and the elaborate handles are horizontal tubular with zoomorphic additions on the top. In the later phase a thin and markedly splayed trumpet lug was adopted from the Diana ware of Lipari. The high quality of the ware and the fact that it most often occurs in graves and other ritual contexts suggests that it was produced for special purposes. It was traded over a wide area occurring in Sicily Lipari Lake Garda Malta and in central Italy."
Serraferlicchio: CATEGORY: site; artifact
DEFINITION: A site near Agrigento in southern Sicily which has given its name to style of pottery of the Copper Age (3rd millennium BC). It is found mainly in rock-cut tombs and consists of a bright-red slipped ware decorated with black paint in geometric designs. Characteristic forms are open bowls and a variety of jug and cup shapes.
Serraferlicchio pottery: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A site near Agrigento in southern Sicily which has given its name to style of pottery of the Copper Age (3rd millennium BC). It is found mainly in rock-cut tombs and consists of a bright-red slipped ware decorated with black paint in geometric designs. Characteristic forms are open bowls and a variety of jug and cup shapes.
sese: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: pl. sesi
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: The name given to the Bronze Age tombs on the Mediterranean island of Pantelleria, between Sicily and Tunisia. The sesi are stone cairns containing 1-11 burial chambers, each consisting of a cell roofed by corbelling and approached by an entrance passage.
Skorba: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site on the island of Malta near Nadur Tower with a temple complex under which earlier deposits have been found. Underneath a small trefoil-shaped temple, dated c 3000-2600 BC, was a Neolithic settlement of mud-brick houses on stone foundations and an oval hut of the Ghar Dalam (impressed ware) phase (c 5000 BC). A three-apse temple of the preceding Ggantija phase (c 3600-3000 BC) was also found as well as an oval-room building of the Red Skorba phase (c 4300-4000 BC). The latter is thought to have been a shrine, precursor to later temples. The name Skorba has been give to two successive pottery styles, Grey Skorba and Red Skorba, which seem to have developed out of the impressed pottery of the Ghar Dalam phase. The pottery seems related to that of contemporary eastern Sicily.
South Italian pottery: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Pottery type made by the Greek colonies of southern Italy and Sicily, mainly from the late 5th century BC, with many centers of production.
square-mouthed pot: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: square-mouthed pottery, bocca quadrata
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A vessel type in which the circular mouth has been pinched into a squarish form while the clay was still soft, characteristic of the Middle Neolithic of northern Italy, especially at Arene Candide. It is thought to shown influence from the Danubian culture of central Europe. There are scattered examples from as far as Crete, Sicily, and Spain.
Stentinello: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Neolithic ditched village site Syracuse in Sicily, the type site of the Sicilian version of impressed ware, which survives later than elsewhere. Round-based dishes and necked jars have elaborate impressed and, distinctively, intricate stamped designs and multiple excised chevrons filled with white inlay. On some, a pair of stamped lozenges are combined with an applied knob near the lip to suggest a human face. The dates are c 5600-4400 BC.
Syracuse: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Corinthian colony and principal port founded traditionally c 734 BC on the east coast of Sicily. The earliest occupation was on the island of Ortygia; later settlement was on the mainland in the Achradina area. Early Palaeolithic material occurs in the Great Harbor. Syracuse was the leader of Greek cities in Sicily and had many struggles with Athens and Carthage, becoming capital of Roman Sicily in the 3rd century BC. Siding with Hannibal in the Second Punic War was a mistake which led to a long siege by Rome. In the early Christian era, Syracuse became something of a religious center, and there are extensive catacombs. From the 5th century onward, the city's civilization disintegrated under the general chaos of the western empire. Surviving remains include the archaic Doric temples of Zeus and Apollo, Temple of Athena, the Greek theater, and a 3rd-century AD amphitheater. Evidence also survives for an extensive fortification system of Epipolae, a triangular-plan rocky plateau which was unified with the city in some 27 km of walling; the Fort of Euryalos was at the highest point.
Tartessos: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: biblical Tarshish, Greek Tarsis; Tartessus
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Early trading kingdom at the mouth of the Guadalquivir Valley in southwestern Spain, site of a semi-mythical city referred to by ancient writers as a source of gold, silver, tin, and lead. Tartessos, in fact, was the late Bronze Age society that included the mines of the Río Tinto in its territory. There is strong circumstantial evidence in the Huelva hoard, for trading with Sardinia, Sicily, Cyprus, the Phoenicians, France, Brittany, and Ireland c 800-550 BC. It has given its name to the Tartessian culture of the early 1st millennium BC which is essentially Phoenician with Etruscan and Greek admixture and whose influence in Spain, on the civilized Iberians of the east coast and the less advanced peoples of the center and north, was considerable.
Thapsos: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Site of a Middle Bronze Age cemetery near Syracuse, Sicily, of nearly 400 rock-cut tombs with dromos entrances. Most have a vertical shaft and were used for collective inhumations. It is the type site of the Thapsos culture, characterized by pottery, bronze swords and daggers, and Mycenaean imports of pottery and faience beads. The local ware has large cups and vases, often on high pedestals and with handles, with decoration in chevrons and cordons. The material is dated c 1400-1200 BC. Thapsos is a promontory but was once an island. The Thapsos culture follows the Castelluccio culture and is succeeded by the Pantalica culture in the same area.

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