fonte: D.Tanasi, archeologo del centro Archeologia Cretese Università Catania
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abstract:
The aim of this paper is to globally revalue the elements of Mycenaean origins which are present, at different levels, in the native cultural production of the North Pantalica facies. The detailed definition of the influences, and the comparison on a diachronic level with the previous evidence in the Thapsos culture, would allow us to focus our attention on the nature and the dynamics implied in the Mycenaean presence in South-Eastern Sicily at the end of the Bronze Age.
For the pottery production, four different new forms of Mycenaean origin are identified: the belly handled amphora (FS 58), the askos (FS 195), the patera (FS 208) and the side spouted jar (FS 155); and one form of Thapsian origin, the cylindered pyxis (FS 11a); furthermore, the problem of jug 133 North, which is considered to be the unique example of a locally made Sicanian-Mycenaean pottery of this period, has also been discussed.
For the metallurgic production in Pantalica, the swords of the A and B Sandars type, of Thapsian origin, are absent, while they are widely found in the other coeval centres of North Pantalica culture; but there are advanced metallurgic war items of Mycenaean origin, such as the goose-head handle sword and the dagger of F Sandars type, which show a continuous relation with the Aegean metallurgic centres also for this period. A sort of continuity is also testified by the presence of other prestigious objects, such as the big bronze mirrors and the violin-arched and simple-arched fibulae. The increase of gold objects in the burials, and the presence of gold figured rings, confirm the intensity and variety of the relationships.
As far as the domestic architecture is concerned, there is the encounter of the influences of Thapsian origin with others whose introduction produces the anaktoron, for instance, in which, for the first time, a project culture of Aegean kind is applied by Mycenaean workshops.
Funerary architecture is different, as the meaningful lack of the tholoid tomb of Thapsian origin corresponds to the introduction of two new tomb types of Mycenaean derivation: the big chamber tomb (camerone) and the pluricellular chamber tomb, whose models in the Aegean are present only after the period of the flourishing of the tholos.
The in-depth study allows us to focus our attention, within the facies of North Pantalica, on the elements of Mycenaean origin in two periods, LH IIIB2 (the beginning of the facies) and LH IIIC (the middle-final period). In this way it would be possible to distinguish three different moments of Mycenaeanization in South-Eastern Sicily between the Middle and Late Bronze age: the first moment would concern Thapsos between LH IIIA1 and LH IIIB1; the second and third would reach Pantalica, without the mediation of Thapsos, respectively in LH IIIB2 and LH IIIC.
The penetration of the Mycenaean influences in the mountain hinterland in Pantalica would have occurred through a port on the coast, which had, during the facies in North Pantalica, the role that the Thapsos emporium had before; we must take into consideration, however, that in this period the commerce and the Mycenaean contacts were lessened.