Archaeological Discoveries in Sicily and Magna Graecia

Abstract

This year again funds and labour have been scarce, and little work has been done by the archaeological departments for South Italy, except in Campania. Most of the finds have been made accidentally during operations of the Bonifica or of road-making.In the basin of the river Gela, where the Bonifica was levelling the gorge of Mt. Dessueri for a dam, workmen reported the discovery of a Sicel site. The cemetery had already been found and illustrated by P. Orsi (NdS 1903, Mon Ant 21). The Department has preserved, among other finds (NdS 1937, 368), a jug with vase-spout containing a filter, the tall foot of a one-handled cup, some fragments of decorated bowls, and, among the bronze material, two axe-heads, a knife-blade, and a spear-head. These recall similar material found by Orsi in the cemeteries of Mt. Dessueri, Mt. Finocchito and Pantalica, and date the site to the second Sicel period.In April 1937 the Sicilian Dept., financed by the Commune of Agrigento, practically completed its prehistoric excavations of the hill of Serraferlicchio above the old railway station, which were successfully started by Orsi and continued later by P. Marconi. It is one of the oldest sites of West Sicily; Orsi had acutely divined the importance of the region, and by 1928 the museum at Syracuse had been enriched by a large collection of painted pottery, of novel shape, with bold and complex geometric patterns.