Temples in Motya and their Levantine prototypes: Phoenician religious architectural tradition

Recent archaeological investigations in Motya by Rome «La Sapienza» University brought about a series of sacred buildings and clarified several aspects of already known ones, revealing the deep roots linking the Sicilian colony to its homeland. If the Temple of the Kothon, dedicated to Baal in the southern quadrant of the city, encompassed by a monumental Circular Temenos, and the Temple of “Cappiddazzu” (possible devoted to Melqart), show the transmission to the West of the architectural typologies of monumental royal sanctuaries, the Four Rooms Building and the Long-Room tripartite temple, other sacred places, like the Shrine of Astarte in Area F or the Temple of the same Goddess again in the Sacred Area of the Kothon may be also considered Punic developments of the religious architectural tradition of the Levant.