Mozia e l’espansione fenicia verso Occidente: dalla pre-colonizzazione alla colonizzazione. Il primo insediamento presso le sorgenti del Kothon

Recent excavations in Motya by Sapienza University of Rome carried on in fruitful cooperation with the Superintendence of Trapani brought about new data on the early stages of the history of the island, during the prehistory. A stable occupation was detected up to Middle Bronze Age and four periods were distin-guished on the ground of stratigraphy, ranging from 1650 to 900 BC until the Phoenician settlement, which occurred in the first decades of the 8th century BC. Across the different periods of prehistory, several finds attest to the full inclusion of the island, a favourable landing place overlooking the Sicilian Canal, into the exchange networks on the main east-west sea-route through the Mediterranean as shown by Levantine, Cypriot, and Mycenean imports.