Il Colosso del Kothon, Baal delle acque del cielo: protezione divina e controllo delle risorse idriche a Mozia nel V secolo a.C.

The statue of Baal at the center of the Kothon of Motya represents both the main deity of the Sacred Area, and the symbol of the religious and political subject that ruled Motya at the end of the 6th century BC. When the Sacred Area was rebuilt in monumental features and was enclosed by the Temenos, the colossal statue was erected on a podium in the center of the sacred basin. This sculpture a typical work of the Cypro-Phoenician style of the second half of the 6th century BC., and it was imported from the Levant. This masterpiece in that preeminent position also played a symbolic role: it represented the physical, as well as ideological, acquisition of the Sacred Area of the Kothon by the deity, also represents the hegemony of a priest-king, a well-known figure in Phoenician and Near-Eastern societies, who shows his power in such evident forms as the construction of the first defensive enclosure of Motya. The erection of the city walls marks a neat change between the ancient colony of the 8th century BC and the Phoenician polis of the 5th century BC, enrooted in the political, social, and cultural context of Hellenized Sicily.