Mozia tra VI e V secolo a.C. Monumentalizzazione e organizzazione socio-politica: un nuovo modello

Recent archaeological investigations carried out by Sapienza University of Rome in several areas of Motya, in cooperation with the Superintendency of Trapani, provided novel data on the history of the Phoenician colony in Sicily, starting from its foundation in the first decades of the 8th century BC, and offering a new stratigraphically established periodization which also allows to re-evaluate various periods of its four centuries-long life in relation with pivotal changes in the history of Mediterranean. The discovery of the Sacred Area of the Kothon, with at least three major temples (the Temple of Baal, that of Astarte and the Sanctuary of Holy Waters) all comprised within a giant Circular Temenos including the sacred pool of the Kothon, has shown the monumental character of the main reconstruction of the city occurred around the mid of the 6th century BC. Moreover, renewed investigations on the city-walls, in Area F, the Tophet and in Areas D and B on the southern slopes of the Acropolis, allow to reconstruct a crucial period in the history of the city, from the 6th century renewal up to around 470 BC, when, in spite of the Carthaginian domination, its ruling institution was strongly influenced by the models of the major Greek cities of Sicily. Furthermore, the discovery of the Temple of Astarte in the Area of the Kothon, with the Greek epithet of the goddess: aglaia, “shining”, gives the hint at deepen the study of this divine hypostasis and of her sanctuaries in central Mediterranean as means of cultural exchange and religious syncretism, as the golden Pyrgi laminae exemplified.