The earliest contacts between south-eastern Sicily and Cyprus in the Late Bronze Age

Abstract

Southeastern Sicily is a key zone for the study of the interrelations between local communities and Aegean and east Mediterranean cultures. In this area the sites which yielded evidences for such contacts are the cemetery of Cozzo del Pantano, I Plemmirio, 2 Matrensa3 and the site of Thapsos4 (Pl. LXXIIIa). The latter is the eponymous centre of the local Middle Bronze Age, and the other three sites also belong to the same period. Thapsos lies on the Magnisi peninsula in the gulf of Augusta, a low-lying limestone promontory connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus, providing a sheltered anchorage and beaching place. The contacts with Mycenaean Greece began to come into light with the first researches at the end of the XIXth century when the first bulk of Mycenaean pots (spanning from MIC IIIAl to MIC IIIBl) was found in the rock-cut tombs along with the local grey hand-made pottery and continued with the excavations in the residential quarter between the end of the l 960's and the first half of the 1980's.5 In those years two elaborate rectangular complexes were unearthed and were regarded to be of Mycenaean inspiration, 6 similar to that found in the tholoi-like profile of few local tombs. 7 During the l 970's the spectrum of Mediterranean interconnections began to broaden thanks to new acquisitions: beside several local and Mycenaean pots, Thapsos' tomb D yielded two Base Ring JJ.8 juglets and one White Shaved jug;9 the latter fabric was documented with one specimen found in the tomb Al at the same site. [excerpt]