Archeoclub d'Italia - Archaeological areas

Text by Nuccio Mulè - Translation by Giovanni Pizzati

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 1. Manfria  -  2. Grotticelle  -  3. Disueri  -  4. Acropolis  -  5. Greek Fortifications  - 6. Greek Baths  -  7. Bitalemi -  8. Ex-Railway Station -             9. Emporium -  10. Calvary Square - 11. Hellenistic Quarters -12. Desusino Mountain - 13. Butera - 14.  Bubbonia Mountain - 15. Piano Camera - 16. The Greek Ship

Necropolis of Manfria  A group of hillocks rise at about 10 km (5 miles) to the west of Gela in Manfria countryside. These hillocks were intensely inhabited since the protohistory age. The excavations put to light the remains of several protohistoric villages dating back to the same era of Castelluccio; in addition, the rocky faces of the hillocks of this countryside are studded with tombs of the Bronze Age in oven style.

In an area of the hill zone facing Piano Marina and sloping down to the west towards the country, in addition to a protohistoric settlement, there are the remains of an early Christian Necropolis with rectangular tombs carved in the limestone, originally sealed with stone-slabs.  

You can observe another important find in this countryside. It is a sighting and defence tower, called Manfria Tower; it was started during the vice-kingdom of De Vega in 1549, but after remaining incomplete, it was resumed in the beginning of 1600 and finished on a plan by the Florentine architect Camillo Camillani.

In several zones of Manfria (Monumenti, Stallone and Mangiova countrysides), finally, they found more old settlements referable to the Roman Empire, late Roman and Byzantine times.

Necropolis of Grotticelle Among the localities of archaeological and historical interest of Gela, Grotticelle zone deserves attention. It is located at about 8 km (4 miles) from the town, where on a big rocky spur there is a protohistoric site, which later a complex of early Christian catacombs was obtained from.

To the west of this necropolis, in Cuccinella Spadaro countryside, a few kilometres distant from the trunk road to Catania, a fortified building rises on the top of a gypsum rock spur under the open sky with two terminal towers. This building is named Castelluccio (Little Castle); the period of its construction is uncertain, but it seems to be made sure that it goes back to the 13^th century according to the typological structure of its outside walls.

Necropolis of Disueri Already before that the Greek colonization poured out onto the east and south coast of Sicily, the territory around Gela was, wide-ranging, densely populated by more or less strong groups of natives living in a progressively advanced stage of civilization. They made their living and development from sheep farming and fertility of the ground.   

Gela territory appears to us more densely populated since the Bronze Age (2000 years B.C.), when the Island cultures seem reaching one of their firmest settlement. We have traces of them everywhere, from Molino a Vento to Piano Notaro (culture of San Cono (19)), from Manfria to Desusino and in all the high ground to the north of Gela hinterland. Just in these high grounds that Gela River winded and winds now, an extremely important fluvial way, on its steep rocky banks, an aggregate of several protohistoric built-up areas set up. They formed an only military and political body, to be precise, the protohistoric centre of the late Bronze Age of Disueri was not only the most remarkable one of these sites, but absolutely one of the vastest and most densely populated of Sicily, comparable to the one of Pantalica. 

Like in the Sican villages that a time before studded Gela Plain, Also here the various built-up areas consisted of circular-plan huts.

Unfortunately, we know nothing yet as direct experience of these villages, because the archaeological researches were addressed to the necropolises that were quarried with a marvellous diligence on the sides and the crags of the several heights by the villages that occupied their summits.   

Up to now, the explored tombs are around two thousands compared to more thousands that prove to be not assessed. The discovered finds, until today inside the niches tombs carved in the rock, consist of ceramics with a red translucent surface and metal objects such as buckles, swords, razors and so on.ecc.

The Acropolis of Molino a Vento was located on the hillock of Molino a Vento, just at the east end of Gela, in a predominant position compared to the mouth of Gela River. The excavations, carried out in several periods (started in 1906 by Paolo Orsi) and up till today in progress, under the archaic Greek level, have revealed a rich protohistoric layer containing ceramics of the Copper and Bronze Ages. Particularly, four circular pit tombs were brought to light. They were surrounded and sealed with stone slabs put in a vertical position. The Rhodes and Crete settlers built up their temples and sanctuaries on the remains of this protohistoric village.

Moreover, this area was set on fire and destroyed by the Carthaginians in 405 B. C. and populated again from 339 B.C. on; the north side of the Acropolis was cut in terraces and on it, they erected houses, shops and votive chapels divided by a series of streets (stenopoi), 4 metres (13 ft) wide and 30.5 metres (100 ft) distant each other, all perfectly perpendicular to the main street axis (plateia) that divided this area to the north, from the sector of the Athena’s Temple (athenaion) to the south; the foundations and walls of the houses are built with stone flakes united with clay, whereas the corners are reinforced with regular limestone blocks; in other walls, we can find a mixed technique: limestone blocks alternated with panels of stone flakes.    

A Panoramic Viewpoint and a Memorial Park were realized in 1927 on the area of the mobile sand dunes of the Acropolis. A memorial was erected in honour of the Terranova soldiers fallen during the World War I inside this park; the monument was a work by the sculptor Pasquale Civiletti from Palermo.

The Greek Fortifications of Caposoprano Until 1948, the area of the Scavone countryside was covered in its south-east end by enormous masses of mobile dunes, some of these were up to 12 metres (39 ft) high; under these dunes, one of the most important monuments of the classical antiquity lay buried since two thousands years. A long stretch of the Greek walls of Gela surfaced again in a very good state after a lot of centuries.

The walls represent the west end of a defensive line that originally turned probably around the whole hill where the town of Gela rose; the walls were destroyed in 282 B.C. and dismantled then in the Middle Ages. Only this stretch of Scavone, kept buried in the sand, got saved miraculously till our days. Some scholars dated these walls in the second half of the 4^th century B.C. and then according to some historical sources, it would be a matter of the town walls that Timoleon got erected during the re-colonization of Gela in 339 B.C.

These fortifications display a very used building technique in the ancient world, it was defined as “mixed technique”, that is, limestone blocks perfectly squared in the lower part and square bricks of raw clay dried in the open air in the upper part; surely, the upper wall made with raw clay bricks is the most important one, even if the walls made with raw bricks, in the ancient times, were built-up rather everywhere; in Iraq, Egypt, Greece, Italy, where particularly, we can but quote some stretch of the Etruscan fortifications of Arezzo. Gela walls surpass them a lot, above all for the freshness of their preservation. Well, we do not exaggerate affirming that they represent a unicum in the Mediterranean archaeology.     

The fortifications of Scavone, 350 metres (383 yards) long on the whole with the highest point up to 8 metres (26 ft), were erected in different periods with regard to the historical events and the most of them with regard to the movement of the sand dunes that, slowly in the long run, covered higher and higher levels of the fortifications.   

Besides in the area contained among the fortification walls, there are traces of buildings buried by the sand with little stone plinths and walls made with raw bricks, related to military barracks and houses of the 4^th c. B.C. Recently some excavations, effected at the base of the north-east head of the fortifications, have highlighted the continuation of the foundations towards the town; therefore, it is a further contribution to the hypothesis of a wall belt of vaster dimensions.    

On the 24^th of April 1997, the State Stationery Office and Mint issued on national scale on request of the local office of the Archaeo-club of Italy, a postage stamp with the face value of 750 lire representing the Greek fortifications of Capo Soprano.

The Greek Baths  On the hill of Caposoprano, to the west of the old town centre, in the area to the south of the civic hospital, whereas in the Timoleon age, the town extended overlapping the ancient Necropolises, the excavations revealed the presence of a thermal establishment with Greek baths, the only one in Sicily and the oldest among those known throughout Italy, datable around the end of the 4th c. B.C. 

Originally, the plant consisted of a heated room for sweat baths and two groups of bathtubs equipped with exhaust pipe, a horseshoe shaped device and also a circular shaped one.  The bathtubs of small dimensions, 1 metre (3ft) long, are equipped with seats and a front hollow for the water collection; in a second room below the trampling floor, you can catch a glimpse of the remains of a room and two corridors where they burned the fuel.

Bitalemi To the east of Gela River, in the immediate vicinity of its mouth, there is a hillock named Bitalemi, where several populations settled from the 7th c. B.C. and up to the Middle Ages. In archaic age, up to the end of the 5th c. B.C., it was the place of a sanctuary dedicated to the cult of the chthonian (underground) gods Demeter and Kores. There were   little buildings with foundations made with heaps of dry-stone; thousands of votive offerings, such as achromatic vases and paintings, amphorae, knives and iron tools that partially were placed upside down in the layer of sand with regard to the character of the goddess, belong to this phase.                                                                       

In the Roman period of Imperial Age (1^st-4^th c. A.D.), the site was occupied by a farm (established just on the ruins of the Greek sanctuary) that was a part of the large estate of Calvisiana with regard to the findings of tiles stamped “ CALVI…” Finally, in the superficial layer of the hillock, the remains of a church and a necropolis were found dating back to the age of Frederic II; the excavations of the Necropolis have particularly highlighted also a big mass grave with many well preserved skeletons and with traces of quicklime on them, that makes them connected to the disastrous plague of 1348.

Emporium of Bosco Littorio Some excavations of 1983, carried out in an area on the edge of Bosco Littorio, brought to light some archaic structures in raw bricks with traces of flooring, dating back to the first Greek settlement, which refer to the existence of an emporium. The sandy area of this grove, realized in 1927, is the result of centuries of mobile dune superimposition that might hide the remains of a town, maybe Lindioi, of the very first Rhodes and Crete settlement in the 7^th c. B.C. and then also the remains of the much sought-after Greek theatre, which its traces were never found of.  At the end of December 1999, during some archaeological excavations effected to the west of the grove, more rooms came to light. Here several findings came out and among them, three very precious clay altars with figures in high relief; the first altar, dimensions 120 x 60 cm (47 x 23 inches), has a winged Gorgon Medusa running and embracing the winged horse Pegasus and Crisaores; the second smaller altar shows, in high relief, the goddess Eos when kidnapping Kefalos; finally, the third altar, featuring a hunting scene of a lioness that sinks her teeth into a bull and also three gods ascribable to Demeter, Khores and Hecate Aphrodite or to the  Metères.  These three altars will be exhibited at the Chamber of Deputies of Montecitorio, Rome from the 26^th of September to the 1^st of October of the current year. Very likely, the continuation of the excavations will bear more important surprises.

 Calvary Square  In the yard of the ex-granaries of the Ducal Palace, in the area of Calvary Square, in 1991 during the excavation works for the realization of a public car park, solid vestiges of ancient structures dating back to different eras emerged; after that the Monuments and Fine Arts Office froze the works, the archaeologists have made several trenches uncovering a series of findings referable to three periods: medieval, archaic and classical.  

The area of Calvary Square was already known as sacred area for the previous excavations effected by Paolo Orsi and more recently by Orlandini and Adamesteanu; excavations where vestiges of votive chapels, clay decorations and architectonic terracotta came to light from.

In the yard, materials and structures of the Middle Ages were pointed out from a side, some cisterns and a wall, 2 metres (6 ft) wide and 25 metres (82 ft) long; from the other side, northwards, two phases referable to the archaic and classical periods.

They attribute to the first period between the 7^th and the 6^th c. B.C., two walls of a building with plinths of heap of stones mixed with river pebbles, a pithos and lots of ceramics fragments; whereas they can attribute to the second period, several fragments of Silenus and Gorgon antefixes, as well as a vestige of street built with river pebbles, 2 metres (7 ft) wide and positioned north-southwards.

Certainly, more coming excavations will bring to light significant structures and materials that may afford the opportunity to the archaeologists to reconstruct the history of this site.

In the south area of Caposoprano, till the years Seventies there were lots of vegetable gardens and cottages and in 1985 in a ground between G.Meli , G. Morselli and Candioto streets, important remains of an Hellenistic quarter  of the 4^th c. B.C. and traces of older life came to light.

The area involved, now in a stage of compulsory purchase, expects to be excavated.

Piano camera In Piano Camera countryside at about 13 km (8 miles) to the east of Gela, there are the life traces of Geloan settlements of the 6^th and 5^th c. B.C. and vestiges of different ages up to the late imperial age of the 5^th c. A.D.; particularly, the foundations of a late-ancient farm of the 4^th-5^th c. A.D. were found, maybe emperor Galba belonged it. Galba is a name that is frequently quoted in the stamps of some tiles found in this area.

Several findings were detected during the excavation works, among these, a Roman oil lamp with the figure of an archer and a rare fragment of a cup sealed with a Gospel scene referred to the miracle of the paralytic.  

In the meanwhile, waiting for their recovery and musealization, the wrecks of the two Greek ships of Gela, keep lying safely in their salt water sepulchre covered with a thick blanket of sand