INGV researchers called to explore the underlying ground with the aim of discovering environments, structures and objects from the Bronze Age
The exploration operations of the subsoil of the Faraglioni village on the island of Ustica in Sicily have begun by the geologists of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) in collaboration with some scholars accredited by the Archaeological Park of Himera Solunto Iato di Santa Flavia (PA).
The Village, in fact, contains a prehistoric settlement from the Bronze Age which is best preserved in the Mediterranean area. More than three thousand years ago, the village was populated by a few hundred people who had settled in a piece of land overlooking the sea. Dedicated to agriculture and fishing, the population built a mighty fortified wall, 250 meters long, 5 meters high and reinforced by 13 towers, due to the perils of the time.
However, community life suddenly stopped and today we find the remains of huts with furniture and furnishings abandoned in their usual position, as when one flees without having time to take anything away.
It's a hitherto unsolved mystery what made survival there suddenly impossible: a natural disaster, a mass deportation, an environmental crisis?
To find out more and investigate any natural causes, the archaeologists called on the INGV researchers who, with experts from the 'Vesuvian Observatory' Section of Naples and the Rome 2 Section, started a geophysical prospecting campaign on the fortifications. The search operations will carry out systematic GPR and geoelectric surveys using investigative techniques capable of exploring the underlying ground without resorting to excavations, up to a depth of a few metres, with the aim of discovering the buried environments, structures and objects.
The main objective of the investigation is, in the first phase, the large defensive wall of the Village, which is proving to be a complex fortified system, made up of various interconnected structures that develop over a vast area outside the wall.
The architect Domenico Targia, new director of the Park, strongly backed this collaboration to give an important boost to the valorisation of the Cultural Heritage of Ustica.
The research is the result of a close collaboration between the Archaeological Park of Himera Solunto Iato and the INGV which will be strengthened through the formalization of an inter-institutional agreement, in order to give continuity to the research already started by Dr Anna Russolillo, Dr . Franco Foresta Martin and the archaeologist Pierfrancesco Talamo.
Photos - Some images of the reliefs in Ustica.
Photos - Some images of the reliefs in Ustica.
Photos - Some images of the reliefs in Ustica.
Photos - Some images of the reliefs in Ustica.
Photos: archeological parks.region.sicilia.it