P. Militello, F, Nicoletti, R. Panvini, La Sicilia Preistorica. Dinamiche interne e relazioni esterne
Abstract
Con la pubblicazione di questi atti giunge a conclusione il Convegno Internazionale di Studi La Sicilia Preistorica. Dinamiche interne e relazioni esterne, tenuto a Catania presso il Dipartimento universitario di Scienze Umanistiche il 7 e 8 ottobre e a Siracusa nel Museo Archeologico Regionale “Paolo Orsi” il 9 ottobre 2021.
Scopo del convegno è stato 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 com-pongono 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 cioè 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 successivamente approfondite, anche in convegni dedicati, che tuttavia non hanno mai focalizzato il tema nella sua globalità cronologica e geografica.
Il convegno, che ha visto alternarsi circa 60 relazioni, ha puntato, pertanto, ad una analisi aggiornata e complessiva di queste relazioni, sia attraverso l’esame di aspetti generali, sia mediante la conoscenza di fenomeni puntuali e circoscritti, per cronologia, per tema o per territorio.
I giorni del convegno sono stati una importante occasione di dibattito e scambio di nuove informazio-ni, tanto più necessaria perché giunta al termine di una terribile pandemia che aveva limitato, o meglio azzerato, qualsivoglia occasione di confronto scientifico in presenza. Ed occorre essere fiduciosi che questi atti, oltre a costituire la fonte tangibile di tali informazioni, potranno costituire il punto di partenza per nuovi sviluppi scientifici, che vadano oltre le stesse pagine del volume.
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The polished stone axes deposit of Ceglie Messapica is a corpus of not ordinary artefacts. Thanks to its uniqueness, it allows to investigate the raw material circulation in Southern Italy and to examine how a precise idea bound to skilled production of large polished blades had spread among the Neolithic-Eneolithic élites, in order to show their status and their cultural identity. The two groups of artefacts forming the deposit are quite dissimilar. The first contains the highest number of blades produced from a Lucan nephritis tremolitica, while the second consists of six axes in local litotypes. Ten of the blades from the storage of Ceglie fall within the ceremonial blades and the longest measuring 40 cm.
Migrants in prehistoric Sicily: the RTV groups - The Sicilian Archipelago of the 2nd millennium BC is characterized by the dichotomy between an original Mediterranean culture that occupies much of the island (facies of Castelluccio), and cultural groups with different characteristics, that occupy the smaller islands and sometimes promontories. These groups, characterized by maritime mobility, set up with the major island a center-periphery relationship that allowed the “Sicilian system” to relate to the Mediterranean world at the time of the diffusion of the alloys metallurgy. Among these cultures, the only one that appears to penetrate deep within the Sicilian territory is that called Rodì-Tindari-Vallelunga. Linked to the circulation of the first metal alloys, and probably of Italic continental origin, it appears generally in-trusive within the territory. This character is perhaps evidence of the demiurgic nature of the bearers of this facies, probably nomadic craftsmen who know the first metallurgy. This is demonstrated by the concentration of the markers belonging to this culture around the Strait of Messina and the Channel of Sicily, the only cross-roads between the two waters of the Med-iterranean involved in the phenomenon, as well as the findings of metal artifacts and molds in a greater number than within the Castelluccian contexts.
The appearance of the first polished stone axes in
southern Italy has occurred with the first evidences of the archaic impressed pottery. The workmanship of these
artefacts has become more and more skilled during the last phases of the Early Neolithic and at the height of
Late Neolithic, thus reaching the expression of a real prestige good. We can remark the increasing imitation of
the European ceremonial types, especially three in particular: the Bégude, Durrington and Puy types. Hoarding
becomes more and more frequent and these artefacts begin to be deposited in graves.
Even in Southern Italy green stone supply is constant, but it concerns above all miniature axes which are deposited
in caves. Ceremonial axes, however, reach remarkable sizes, up to 40 cm length. The employed lithotypes
are always local ones, but the type imitates the European ceremonial ones. Such reproductions are made in
local rocks because southern Italy Neolithic societies effect a sort of “appropriation and active re-elaboration”
of the European model. The concept of appropriation is given by the fact of the idea that the status is expressed
through the possession of such artefacts which becomes common to everyone, active re-elaboration because it
is true that ceremonial axes imitate European types –because those are the groups to which they refer – but they
do it through an artefact reflecting a local production so denoting a cultural characterization. Furthermore, on
the whole are included also the large blades in local flint: a clear choice denoting a cultural belonging.
Southern Italy is part of those Mediterranean territories where between the beginning of the Middle Neolithic and
the Early Eneolithic begin to appear the first signs of a social complexity, and the use of these artefacts identifies
the ability of only few to cover elitist roles. It is obvious that these objects, which are chosen to fill the role of social
indicators, must also receive positive feedback from the communities. It is through this feedback that the ceremonial
axes, in any rock they are, begin to play a fundamental role among the Neolithic – Early Eneolithic clans.
It is not a case, in fact, that these polished stone axes were produced, exchanged and hoarded even from distant
communities in space and time being anyway felt like artefacts that conveyed a series of complex signals.
For this reason it is proposed to use for the polished stone axes the term of “transcultural goods” thus identifying
those products that transcend all that is intrinsic to the particularity and specificity of a single culture.
The Bronze Age in Europe has been the subject for some books over the years, including Coles and Harding’s The Bronze Age in Europe and Jacques Briard’s The Bronze Age in Barbarian Europe. This handbook aims to add relevant information about the Bronze Age, and covers Bronze Age Europe outside the Aegean area. It is split into two main parts, which provide a thematic approach (Part I) and geographical approach (Part II) to the study of the European Bronze Age. The first part presents various articles on themes and topics about the Bronze Age in Europe, such as warfare, animal husbandry, and burial practices. The second part describes some European countries during the Bronze Age, including Scandinavia, the western Balkans, and Iberia.
Cult activity played an extremely important role in the lives of individuals and of groups in ancient Greece. Where people worshipped the gods had a major influence on their conceptual geography. In 1984, Francois de Polignac argued that the placing of cult centres played a major part in establishing the whole concept of the city-state in archaic Greece. The essays in this collection, headed by one by de Polignac himself in which he reassesses his position, critically examine the social and political importance of sanctuary placement, not only re-examining areas of archaic Greece discussed by de Polignac, but extending the analysis back to Mycenean Greece and on to Greece under Roman occupation. Not only do these essays reveal something of the complexity of relations between religion and politics in ancient Greece, but they show how important tradition, gender relations, and cult identity were in creating and maintaining the religious mapping of the ancient Greek countryside.
Despite a broad temporal presence in Egyptian records, the association of the Sherden with another ‘Sea Peoples’ group – the better known and archaeologically-attested Philistines – has led to several assumptions about this people, their culture, and the role they played in the various societies of which they may have been a part. This article separates the Sherden from the Aegean migration and greater ‘Sea Peoples’ phenomenon of the Late Bronze–Early Iron Age transition and focuses on the aspect of this people for which we have the best evidence: their role in Egyptian society. Once those layers have been peeled away, a close reading of the extant literary and pictorial evidence from the New Kingdom and beyond reveals the evolving role of the Sherden in Egypt, from adversarial origin, through a phase of combined military cooperation and social exclusion, to a final, multigenerational period marked by rapid and enduring acculturation and assimilation.
This volume brings together scholars in religion, archaeology, philology, and history to explore case studies and theoretical models of converging religions. The twenty-four essays presented, which derive from Hittite, Cilician, Lydian, Phoenician, Greek, and Roman cultural settings, focus on encounters at the boundaries of cultures, landscapes, chronologies, social class and status, the imaginary, and the materially operative. Broad patterns ultimately emerge that reach across these boundaries, and suggest the state of the question on the study of convergence, and the potential fruitfulness for comparative and interdisciplinary studies as models continue to evolve.