Morgantina
Μοργάντιον / Μοργαντίνη | |
Alternative name | Morgantia, Morgantium, Morgentia, Murgantia, Murgentia |
---|---|
Location | Aidone, Province of Enna |
Coordinates | 37°25′51″N 14°28′46″E / 37.43083°N 14.47944°E |
Type | Settlement |
History | |
Periods | Late Bronze Age to Roman Republic |
Site notes | |
Excavation dates | 1884, 1912, 1955–1963, 1966–1967, 1968–1972, 1978–present |
Archaeologists | Luigi Pappalardo, Paolo Orsi, Erik Sjöqvist, Richard Stillwell, Hubert L. Allen, William A. P. Child, Malcolm Bell III, Carla Antonaccio |
Management | Soprintendenza BB.CC.AA. di Enna |
Website | Area Archeologica Morgantina (in Italian) |
Morgantina (
Serra Orlando was identified as Morgantina by Kenan Erim following the discovery of a number of coins bearing the Latin word HISPANORUM. Erim used these coins and passages from Livy to argue that the city found at Serra Orlando was in fact the ancient city of Morgantina.[1]
History
The name appears in different forms among different authors: Morgantia, Murgantia and Morgantium in scholarship; in ancient sources Strabo used the name Μοργάντιον, Diodorus Siculus used Μοργαντίνη and Stephanus of Byzantium writes that it was also called Μοργεντία.[2] The name is variously written by Latin writers as Murgantia, Murgentia and Morgentia. The inhabitants were called Murgentini by Cicero and Pliny the Elder.
According to Strabo Morgantina was founded by a pre-Roman Italian group known as the
No later mention of Morgantina is made until Thucydides lists it as part of the terms of a truce in the war of 427–424 BCE between Syracuse and the Dorian cities of Sicily on one side, and Kamarina, the Khalkidian cities of Sicily, the Sikels, and Athens on the other side.[7] Thucydides says that Syracuse agreed at the Congress of Gela to give Morgantina to Kamarina in return for payment of an indemnity. Kamarina was destroyed in 405 by the Carthaginians. Morgantina, therefore, must have been independent from at least this date, although it was soon recaptured by Dionysios of Syracuse in 396.[8] Syracuse retained (occasionally more nominal than actual) control of Morgantina until the Second Punic War. In 317, Morgantina received the tyrant Agathocles, then in exile, and offered him help in returning to Syracuse. He was elected praetor at Morgantina, and later dux.[9]
As part of the Syracusan kingdom of Hiero II, Morgantina fell under the hegemony of Rome when Hieron became a Roman vassal in 263. In 214, Morgantina switched its allegiance from Rome to Carthage.[10] Morgantina remained autonomous until 211 when it became the last Sicilian town to be captured by the Romans. It was given as payment by Rome to a group of Spanish mercenaries.[11] In 133, Morgantina was the place where Eunus, the leader of the slave rebellion known as the First Servile War, died.[12] In the Second Servile War, Morgantina was besieged and taken by slaves. The final mention of Morgantina comes again from Strabo, who notes that in his own time, the first century CE, the city had ceased to exist.[13]
A few literary sources describe Morgantina and its economy. Most famous of these are the references to the vitis murgentina, a strain of grape mentioned by Cato, Columella, and Pliny the Elder.[14] These grapes were prized for their wine — Pliny called it "the very best among all those that come from Sicily" — and had been transplanted from Sicily to mainland Italy by the 2nd century BCE.
Excavation history
Early work on Serra Orlando
The earliest excavations at Morgantina were undertaken by Luigi Pappalardo in 1884. He uncovered part of a necropolis, a large terracotta drain and two houses. One of the houses he found, the Pappalardo house, was named for him by later American excavators.
Paolo Orsi recorded stray finds from Morgantina and excavated trial trenches in 1912. He located a terrace of nine steps, and walls, as well as what he called 'a Roman house'.
Princeton University
Morgantina has been the principal site of American research on classical Sicily. Currently there are two other sites on the island with significant American presences: the Soprintendenza BB.CC.AA. di
Hubert Allen and the University of Illinois
In the mid-1960s, Princeton graduate student Hubert L. Allen assumed a role in the administration of the excavations. Upon receiving his doctorate, Allen was hired by the
University of Virginia and Wesleyan University
The excavations had produced vast amounts of artefacts and data, but as yet there was no final publication. In 1978, Malcolm Bell III, professor of classical art and archaeology at the University of Virginia, took over the project with the goal of publishing the Morgantina material. Bell was a former Princeton graduate student (Sjöqvist had been Bell's advisor until his retirement) who had written his dissertation on terracotta figurines found at Morgantina. He has conducted investigations on Serra Orlando since 1982, each time with the intention of answering specific questions raised by earlier work. Bell used his dissertation as the basis for the first book in the Morgantina Studies series published in 1983. Six volumes have appeared in the series, which is the main vehicle for the definite publication of the excavation results.
In 1990, Carla Antonaccio, then on the faculty of
The site's archives are currently housed at the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University, though some materials also exist at the University of Illinois.
Looting and restitution of Morgantina artworks
By the 1980s, a number of works looted from or near the Morgantina site were marketed to major collectors and institutions, with the now-disgraced dealer
North Baths
Since 2003 Sandra K. Lucore (formerly of the University of Tokyo, now an independent scholar) has led excavations of the 3rd century BC North Baths complex that have produced interesting results including evidence of one of the earliest examples of dome and barrel vault construction.[17]
Bouleuterion
The bouleuterion in Morgantina is a rectangular building located west of the agora of the city. It was founded during the 3rd century BC, a period of great prosperity for Morgantina, which, from the 5th century BC on had acquired a profoundly Hellenic character.
The building had a bipartite plan. A walled forecourt led through a stoa to the main entrance, centrally located at the east wall of the auditorium. A rectangular substructure held wooden benches where the assembly sat to listen to the speakers. Stone buttressing, connected to this substructure, supported the south retaining wall.
Today, only the foundation and parts of the south side of the auditorium are preserved.
Archaeological Museum of Aidone
A regional museum was opened in Aidone in 1980 to house finds from Morgantina. The building, dating from the 17th century, is a former Capuchin monastery. The museum is run by the Soprintendenza BB.CC.AA. di Enna. There are two floors of exhibits, covering the site's prehistoric, archaic, and classical periods, along with a thematic display that draws attention to aspects of ancient daily life.
See also
References
- JSTOR 500463.
- ^ Stephanus of Byzantium, Ethnica, M456.9
- ^ Strabo, Geographica 6.1.6
- ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 1.12.3
- ^ Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 11.78.5
- ^ Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 11.91
- ^ Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 4.65
- ^ Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 14.78.7
- ^ Justin, Historiarum Philippicarum 22.2.1
- Ab urbe condita 24.36.10
- ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita 26.21.17
- ^ Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 34.2
- ^ Strabo, Geographica 6.2.4
- ^ Diodorus Siculus, Library, 35.11.1
- ^ Pro Loco Aidone, entry on la vicenda antiquaria della dea di morgantina.
- ^ "The Revolutionary Architecture of the North Baths at Morgantina, Sicily". The Getty Museum. Archived from the original on 9 November 2017. Retrieved 6 January 2013.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bunbury, Edward Herbert (1857). "Morgantia". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Vol. 2. London: John Murray. pp. 370–371.
Further reading
- Lucore, Sandra K. (2009). "Archimedes, the North Baths at Morgantina, and Early Developments in Vaulted Construction". In Kosso, Cynthia; Scott, Anne (eds.). The Nature and Function of Water, Baths, Bathing, and Hygiene from Antiquity Through the Renaissance. Technology and Change in History. Vol. 11. Leiden: Brill. pp. 43–59. ISBN 9789004173576.
- Orsi, Paolo (1912). "Aidone, scoperte diverse a Serra Orlando". Notizie Degli Scavi (in Italian): 449–454.
- Orsi, Paolo (1915). "Aidone, scavi nella anonima città a Serra Orlando". Notizie Degli Scavi (in Italian): 233–234.
- Singleton, Maura (2006). "Plunder: The theft of the Morgantina silver". The University of Virginia Magazine. 95 (1). Archived from the original on 14 February 2010. Retrieved 6 January 2013.
- Trümper, Monika (2023). The House of the Two Skeletons at Morgantina. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 9783447118460.
- Walsh, Justin (December 2011). "Urbanism and Identity at Classical Morgantina". Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. 56/57: 115–136.
- Zisa, Flavia (2017). "Art without Context: The "Morgantina Goddess", a Classical Cult Statue from Sicily between Old and New Mythology". Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art: Collection of Articles. Vol. 7. Ed. S. V. Mal'tseva, E. Iu. Staniukovich-Denisova, A. V. Zakharova. 7: 169–178. ISSN 2312-2129. https://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa177-1-18
The Morgantina Studies series:
- Bell, Malcolm (1982). The Terracottas. Morgantina Studies. Vol. 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691039466.
- ISBN 9780691040134.
- Caprio, Ninina Cuomo di (1992). Fornaci e Officine da Vasaio Tardo-ellenistiche [Late Hellenistic Potters' Kilns and Workshops]. Morgantina Studies (in Italian). Vol. 3. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691040141.
- Leighton, Robert (1993). The Protohistoric Settlement on the Cittadella. Morgantina Studies. Vol. 4. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9781400863341.
- Lyons, Claire L. (1996). The Archaic Cemeteries. Morgantina Studies. Vol. 5. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691040165.
- Stone, Shelley C. (2013). The Hellenistic and Roman Fine Pottery. Morgantina Studies. Vol. 6. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691156729.