4 Islands and Mobility: Exploring Bronze Age Connectivity in the South-Central Mediterranean
Abstract
Prehistorians working in the Mediterranean have long realised that islands have been central to human mobility from early times. Indeed, the traditional focus on material culture studies, in particular regional and island-group typologies and chronologies, was borne out of the need to understand processes of culture change. Using the concept of the ‘maritory’, this chapter identifies three major cycles of object/human/knowledge mobility that characterise the island worlds of the south-central Mediterranean in the course of the Bronze Age. The social significance of interaction by coastal communities living on either side of a tract of sea is explored.
Never as in the last decade has the call been clearer: the history of the Mediterranean is the history of interaction, of the mobility of goods and people and above all connectivity – that low-level interaction between micro-regions over the longue durée. So much can be gleaned from contributions which cross-cut different specialisations in the social and political sciences (e.g. Cooke 1999; Horden and Purcell 2000; Sant Cassia and Schäfer 2005; Caletrío Garcerá and Ribera Fumaz 2007). Mobility, not only for the Mediterranean at any given time, is being considered an emerging paradigm within the social sciences (Sheller and Urry 2006), and a separate area of study with its own journal (Hannam et al. 2006). The timing coincides with the European Union’s interest in the phenomenon of human migration, a theme supported by its framework programme Culture 2000 which sponsored the project called Crossings: Movements of People and Movement of Cultures – Changes in the Mediterranean from Ancient to Modern Times (Antoniadou and Pace 2007). Central to this interest in movement is the belief that ‘radical mobility is not a phenomenon of the twenty-first century alone but is a key constituent element of human life in all periods’. These are the words that appear on the back page of a book by Stephen Greenblatt, who has recently written a manifesto of mobility studies (Greenblatt 2010). The manifesto reacts to the way in which disciplines have largely apprehended cultures as local, where rootedness is often seen as the necessary condition for a robust cultural identity.
It is doubtful whether archaeologists have ever shied away from the considerations raised in the manifesto (Greenblatt 2010: 250–53). Indeed, for prehistorians, mobility has often been a sine qua non for understanding processes of culture change, even when the vectors of that movement – whether persons, objects or knowledge traditions – have not all been afforded equal deliberation (Cummings and Johnston 2007: 1; Knapp and van Dommelen 2010). In understanding prehistoric mobility, Mediterranean islands have often been favoured in investigations because their geomorphology and location have been central to connectivity from the earliest periods of long-distance communication. And in more recent years, the strict distinction, on which archaeologists studying islands have often insisted, between geographical isolation and cultural distinctiveness has been rethought, often as a result of attempts to move beyond disciplinary boundaries if not intellectual isolation (Broodbank 2000; Knapp 2008: 13–30). Restrictions of space do not allow us to show how knowledge about ancient objects and sites is often begotten by evocations of mobility as well as actual travel. A case can be made, however, that particular spaces and modern spatialities have impacted upon the formulation of theories and historical narratives of ancient mobility in the south-central Mediterranean, in particular the island of Sicily and the smaller island groups that surround it. The cue comes from recent work on the geography of scientific knowledge, where importance is given to the roles played by space and place in the production, consumption and circulation of knowledge (Livingstone 2005). Many Mediterranean islands stimulated ideas about the remote past and were important for the development of an idea of prehistory (Leighton 1989). Indeed, several south-central Mediterranean islands also became an integral part of a knowledge-scape of European antiquarianism, facilitated by the unprecedented explosion in mobility of travellers that took the Early Modern period by storm (Freller 2008; 2009). This can be inferred, for example, from the role played by the Maltese megalithic monuments in the history of archaeological thought (in part explored in Vella and Gilkes 2001; Malone and Stoddart 2004; Pessina and Vella 2009). In all cases, prehistoric connections between places and across space have often been conceived and represented over the years by those scholars – young archaeologists and seasoned fieldworkers – whose research was essentially done during a journey or at the end of one. After the disarray caused by the radiocarbon revolution (Renfrew 1973), theoretical debates have sought to understand the significance of transinsular distribution of artefact styles, or indeed the lack of such distributions, as signifiers of social practices. In this debate, little attempt has been made to comprehend what happened in the south-central Mediterranean after the middle of the third millennium BC when Malta’s so-called Temple period ended, even if important issues are at stake (Cazzella et al. 2007). This chapter explores the degree, extent and social significance of material connections between the island worlds of the south-central Mediterranean in the Bronze Age.
Cycles of Mobility in the Bronze Age Longue Durée
At the risk of stating the obvious, we start by reiterating two important points. Of all the ways that islands make a difference in a study about ancient human mobility, two are the most important: first, that throughout prehistory, contact between the island group of the central Mediterranean and the rest of the world was entirely through the medium of maritime connections; second, that the sea was the medium which could both isolate the islanders from and bring them into contact with their closest neighbours. For the south-central Mediterranean (Figure 4.1), the island chains and archipelagos (Aeolian, Egadi, Pelagic, Maltese), some within sight of each other or the main island (Sicily) and peninsular Italy, enabled maritime exploration from an early date (Dawson 2007), overcoming the complex combinations of winds, currents and tides along the different tracts of coast (Tichy 2001: 203). In considering the degree and nature of the connectedness for the islands of the central Mediterranean in the third and second millennia BC, we are faced with quite a few problems. The first difficulty is related to an assessment of seacraft technology; the second emanates from a severe lack of systematic provenance analyses on objects, such as pottery, for example; the third arises from a general lack of studies which assess the subsistence base and nutritional needs of the islanders; and the fourth relates to the underestimation of the maritime conditions which hamper mobility in the seas and channels around Sicily and its islands (routes drawn on maps – e.g. Militello 2004: fig. 13; Blakolmer 2005: 659; Marazzi and Tusa 2005: pl. 42 – would be inconceivable without steam or diesel engine). So, although it is possible to distinguish at a general level the movement of artefacts or artefact styles across bodies of water, in the best of cases, the scale and intensity of the maritime encounters involved is more difficult to discern (Manning and Hulin 2005). Direct evidence for seacraft technology, for instance, is lacking for the central Mediterranean, but indirect evidence from Sicily and elsewhere, recently reviewed by Broodbank (2010), suggests that the uptake of sail technology did not occur before the second half of the second millennium BC. Earlier, longboats – paddled and oared – with high prows may have been common, sturdy enough to carry humans and cargoes over the seas. Available technology coupled with the availability of resources, including access to trees of the right size (presumably from Sicilian woodland – cf. Sadori and Narcisi 2001), would, of course, have impacted upon the extent of the zones of maritime trade and interaction. But there were other factors too that go beyond the ecological, specialist workforces most especially, covering the whole gamut of skills required from woodworking to wayfinding at sea.
Figure 4.1. The Sicilian archipelago – Sicily, the Aeolian Islands, Ustica, the Egadi Islands, Pantelleria, the Pelagic Islands, the Maltese Islands, together with other sites mentioned in the text: 1. Monte San Paolillo; 2. Barriera di Catania; 3. Metapiccola; 4. Molino della Badia; 5. Montagna di Caltagirone; 6. Cittadella di Morgantina; 7. Sabucina; 8. Manfria; 9. Sant’Angelo Muxaro. Summer weather patterns for the south-central Mediterranean are shown (after Heikell 2006). Drawing by Maxine Anastasi.
Departing from the view that seafaring constitutes in itself social action (Farr 2006), we feel that the concept of the ‘maritory’, as proposed by Needham (2009), can allow us to structure our discussion of the cycles of mobility that can be defined for the central Mediterranean Bronze Age using the available archaeological evidence. A maritory is a geographic system related to a specific tract of sea or channel within which shared and reciprocal interests among participating communities can develop. As Needham argues, the emphasis is not on rigidly bounded entities or culture zones, but spheres where high-flux maritime interaction can be discerned. Ours is not a matter of adding a new term to existing debates but a way of highlighting and, when archaeological evidence permits, understanding the social reasons for mobility. For Sicily, in particular, with its settlement distribution conditioned by proximity to the sea for the whole of later prehistory (Leighton 2005: 274), we believe that the concept is particularly apt for our discussion. We propose considering three principal cycles of mobility that touch on the central Mediterranean over the longue durée, conscious of the fact that the difficulty to pigeonhole archaeological data and processes in neat periodisation schemes should assist constructive generalisations (Table 4.1): first, restraining mobility followed by divergence in the Early Bronze Age (ca. 2200–1450 BC); second, escalating mobility in the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1450–1250 BC); and third, restraint and mobility in the extended Late Bronze Age (ca. 1250–850 BC).
| Years BC | Sicily | Malta | S. Italy | Aegean | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2200 | Palma Campania | Middle Helladic | |||
| 1700 | |||||
| 1600 | Early Bronze Age | Castelluccio | Tarxien Cemetery (II A) | ||
| Middle Bronze Age 1–2 (Protoappenine) | |||||
| 1550 | Capo Graziano | Late Helladic I–II | |||
| 1440– | |||||
| 1420 | Thapsos I | Borğ in-Nadur (II B1) | |||
| 1440– | Milazzese I | Middle Bronze Age 3 (Appenine) | Late Helladic IIIA1 | ||
| 1380 | Thapsos II | ||||
| 1350 | Middle Bronze Age | ||||
| 1310– | Milazzese II | Late Helladic IIIA2 | |||
| 1300 | Thapsos III | ||||
| Recent Bronze Age 1 (Subappenine) | Late Helladic IIIB1 | ||||
| 1270– | Milazzese III | ||||
| 1250 | Pantalica I | Late Helladic IIIB2 | |||
| (Pantalica Nord – Mont. Caltagirone) | Borğ in-Nadur (II B2) | Recent Bronze Age 2 (Protovillanovian) | |||
| 1180 | Ausonio I | ||||
| 1150 | Late Bronze Age (Bronzo Tardo) | Pantalica II (Pantalica Nord – Mont. Caltagirone) | Final Bronze Age 1–2 (Protovillanovian) | Late Helladic IIIC | |
| 1050 | Ausonio I | Final Bronze Age 3 (Protovillanovian) | Submycenaean | ||
| 900 | Pantalica III | Protogeometric | |||
| 850 | Late Bronze Age (Bronzo Finale) | (Cassibile) Ausonio II | Borğ in-Nadur (II B3) | I Iron Age 1a (Villanovian) | Early Geometric |
| I Iron Age 1b (Villanovian) | Middle Geometric | ||||
| 750 | Early Iron Age | Pantalica IV (Pantalica South) | Baħrija (II C) | ||
| I Iron Age 2a–b (Villanovian) | Late Geometric |
Restraining Mobility Followed by Divergence in the Early Bronze Age (ca. 2200–1550 BC)
About 4500 years ago, the Maltese Islands were experiencing the tail end of a process that had started about a millennium earlier and which had set the archipelago on a path of development very different from what was happening in Sicily and peninsular Italy. The hard archaeological evidence for this ‘development of difference’ (Robb 2007: 331) consists of the Late Neolithic megalithic buildings and communal burial sites of Malta and Gozo with their particular architectural layout, singular pottery styles and peculiar figurine traditions. In social terms, this difference would imply the existence of a level of complexity based on a ritual-regulated mode of social reproduction vested in leaders responsible for restricting mobility and access to foreign resources, if not knowledge traditions associated with their procurement and transformation. Such resources included flint and obsidian (Tykot 1996; C. Vella 2008), ochre (Maniscalco 1989) and greenstone (Leighton and Dixon 1992; Skeates 1995), basalt, alabaster, marble, pumice and volcanic rock (Brown et al. 1995). These substances originated in specific areas, either on volcanic islands (Pantelleria, Lipari) or mountain ranges along eastern Sicily or the Calabrian peninsula (Monti Iblei, Etna, northeast Sicily for basalts, Calabria for greenstones) – all recognisable seamarks in their own right by their shape, height and colour and, therefore, essential for wayfinding along different stretches of sea (as understood by Ingold 2000: 219–42; cf. Arnaud 2008) (Figure 4.2a). Such resources were transformed in several ways, even if we can only identify a few of them. Productive technology would appear to have become a key factor in the development of social complexity. Both actions of procurement and transformation, over and above colour, texture and translucency of the material, could have imbued these resources and objects with special significance at their destination. Ethnographic studies (Helms 1988; 1993; Gell 1992) would support these readings and ‘map on’ the recent proposition that the megalithic structures where most of these materials were deposited could be understood as ‘repositories of knowledge traditions’ (Turnbull 2002). Together with the south Italian greenstone, one type of pottery suggests that Malta, directly or indirectly, was drawn into a larger interaction zone than the smaller ones centred around Sicily and its offshore islands, and which may have been located around the Adriatic and the Dalmatian coast: this is a pottery style that goes by the name of ‘Thermi ware’ and that is characterised by a design of alternating triangles with pitted decoration on a thickened internal lip, known in the Aegean and the western Balkans before the mid-third millennium BC (cf. Maran 2007; Palio 2008) (Figure 4.3a). This type of pottery, which may have reached the central Mediterranean around 2300 BC (Cazzella 2003), and is plentiful on the present islet of Ognina to the south of Syracuse (Figure 4.1), where it was first recognised by Bernabò Brea (1966; 1976–77; Trump 2004–2005), has been recovered in Temple-period contexts in Malta (Trump et al. 2009: 239). Here it seems to have been made using local clay, if we go by the results of recent analyses (Mommsen et al. 2006). The clearest example – a pedestalled bowl with characteristic lip (Figure 4.3a: 3) – was found hidden behind a monumental altar at the Tarxien temples (Evans 1971: 221). As with other material found in Temple-period contexts that was concealed from view in pits and below floors or thresholds (N. Vella 2007: 68–70), it is possible that secrecy overrode public access. In this context, arguing that the Maltese Islands formed part of a Copper Age maritory would be fortuitous. In its ‘difference’, the Maltese story is about insularity and restraining access to ritualised knowledge, begotten by cross-channel mobility.
No sites in the Maltese archipelago have been clearly dated to the period between 2400–2000 BC (Malone et al. 2009). Indeed, the nature of the transition between the Late Neolithic Temple period and the Early Bronze Age is far from clear, with population replacement theories remaining a favourite (cf. Bonanno 1993; Leighton 1999: 137; Trump 2002: 238–41; Pace 2004). The transformation of several megalithic sites (e.g. Bonanno 1999; Recchia 2004–2005), the introduction of cremation as a communal burial rite and the use of the dolmen (Evans 1956b), the adoption of richly incised monochrome pottery (Evans 1971: 224–25), and the use of copper (Maniscalco 2000) all herald a new era for the Maltese Islands and evoke what is happening in certain parts of Sicily, its islands and beyond. The material signposts point eastward, towards the Balkans, the Aegean and finally Anatolia, with a singular diagnostic element being peculiar plaques of bone with a row of bosses on one side, often richly decorated, like the examples from Castelluccio-phase contexts in Sicily, but sometimes plain, like the example from the Tarxien Cemetery in Malta (Evans 1956a; Maran 2007: 14–18).
Towards the end of the third millennium BC, the Maltese Islands re-enter the fold of a common central Mediterranean cultural matrix. That matrix is complex, however, made up of layers of small, local differences in material culture, the understanding of which must have depended on indigenous knowledge or knowledge shared between different areas. It is difficult to determine whether these interaction zones imply a maritory, in other words, whether communities on either side of a tract of sea, or along a coastal route, were acting within clear organisation and ideological structures and were both getting out of the system what they most sought in social terms. Much of western and central Sicily probably did, and came to form part of a maritory with clear roots in the preceding millennium and links to Sardinia (Leighton 1999: 111; Cazzella 2000), where pottery of the Beaker tradition has been taken to imply shared codes of social conduct and value (Barfield 1994; Tusa 1997a). Such shared codes were possibly based on marriage alliances at the local level (Vander Linden 2007) rather than on control over the acquisition of mineral resources, missing, for instance, in western Sicily (Giannitrapani 2009: 240). Maritime interaction can be identified for this facies (Castelluccio in Sicily and Capo Graziano in the Aeolian isles; Tarxien Cemetery in Malta) on the basis of shared elements in the material culture. In southeast Sicily, the occurrence of rock-cut tombs bearing carved facades of semi-columns with engravings, and at least in two cases (at Castelluccio) with doors closed by spiral-decorated stone slabs, have been taken to imply a funerary megalithism in miniature. This architectural idiom would have been inspired by the Maltese megalithic temples, if not built by the temple builders who left the island and sought refuge in southeast Sicily (Cultraro 2000; Terranova 2008). The significance of that connection over and above vague formal similarities has, however, been questioned (Bonanno 2008: 32). Figurative representations in terracotta, either anthropomorphic (from Monte San Giuliano at Caltanissetta) or disc-like (from Manfria and Catania Barriera), recall similar examples from the cemetery at Tarxien (Giannitrapani 1997; Guzzone 2005: 46). Movement of mineral resources from southern Sicily is also inferred by the discovery of sulphur – a multi-purpose mineral (La Rosa 2005: 574–75) – recovered in small quantities among burials at the cemetery inside the megalithic complex of Tarxien on Malta (Zammit 1930: 59–60). The source is probably Monte Grande at Palma di Montechiaro, which appears to have served, with its coastal enclave, as a gateway community for pre-Mycenaean Aegean prospectors (Castellana 1999).
One diagnostic element of material culture, however, really provides a glimpse into the maritime worlds of which the eastern part of Sicily came to form part. The pottery that accompanied the cremation burials at Tarxien, especially the helmet-shaped bowls with incised decoration around the base of the handle (Figure 4.3a: 5, 7), is typologically similar to pottery from the village at Capo Graziano, the easternmost and most prominent tip of the tiny Aeolian island of Filicudi (Evans 1971: 149–66). Similarities with the late EH III examples in the Aegean have been sought on the basis of material retrieved from Altis in Olympia (Cazzella 2003: 562; Cazzella et al. 2007: 247–48, fig. 3) (Figure 4.3a: 4, 6), and linked with a phenomenon of seafaring activities dubbed ‘Argonauts of the West Balkans’ (Maran 2007: 14). What the pottery shows us is how much the scattered island groups to the north and south of Sicily have in common with each other rather than with the Castelluccio culture in Sicily. This phenomenon has been remarked upon by Leighton (1999: 137) who posits different scenarios to explain the developments taking place on Filicudi. That some degree of human mobility was involved, however, cannot be doubted, and it would appear that we have at this time the rise of the island or coastal centre (Broodbank 2010: 252), placed off or along a stretch of mainland or quasi-mainland coast (as with Ognina, at this time a tip on a low promontory [Lena et al. 1988: 60–62], and far-off Malta, Gozo and Pantelleria), or at a nodal point among a cluster of islands (as with Filicudi) (La Rosa 2002). Whether for trading or other strategic purposes, activity was limited to the islands and the seaways (Figure 4.2c). An inkling of the maritime mobility can be had from the recovery of pottery of Aeolian fabric on the island of Vivara off the Campanian coast (Cazzella et al. 1997) and of 67 pots of Capo Graziano type recovered from the seabed in the Bay of Lipari, probably lost off a boat (Ciabatti 1978; Bernabò Brea 1978; 1985: 48–52). Moreover, the Early Bronze Age village enclave at Viale dei Cipressi in Milazzo (Tigano 2009: 23–27) reminds us that a pocket of activity on the nearby northern coast of Sicily was required to facilitate maritime communications for those sailors who brought pottery from the Aegean to the Aeolian islands (Vianello 2005; also Levi et al. 2009: 67) through a tricky bit of sea (cf. Flesca 2002; Haslam 1978: 226–27).
Escalating Mobility in the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1450–1250 BC)
It is in the context of contacts with the Aegean world and the expansion of its palace economies that the intensification of mobility and the increased sociopolitical sophistication that characterise the Middle Bronze Age of the south-central Mediterranean have to be seen. In the space of two centuries, seafaring activity, seemingly facilitated by the introduction of the sail (Broodbank 2010: 257), brought several sites on the façade maritime of eastern and southern Sicily in contact with the world of the Mycenaeans who ventured farther west at the time. Even though the scale of the contact is uncertain, ‘infrequent’ in Blake’s (2008) minimalist stance, the evidence for mobility is undeniable: pottery found in significant quantities in the areas of Syracuse (van Wijngaarden 2002: 229–36; Vianello 2005: 106–75) and Agrigento (De Miro 1999: 439–49; Castellana 2000); oxhide ingots (Thapsos: Lo Schiavo 2004: 1326–28; Ognina: Bernabò Brea 1966: 44–45; Cannatello: Lo Schiavo and Vagnetti 1989: 231); jewellery made from glass paste, stone, ivory, amber and gold (Militello 2004: 310–11); and at least one terracotta figurine of the ‘proto-phi’ type from Lipari (Bernabò Brea and Cavalier 1980: 176). It is thought that with objects came itinerant artisans and architects, but also ideas and values which are often translated into a ‘proto-urban’ layout for settlements such as Cannatello and Thapsos on Sicily and I Faraglioni on Ustica (De Miro 1999: 439–49; Doonan 2001: 177), tholos tombs for burial (Tomasello 2004), weaponry (La Rosa 2000: 125–38; Bettelli 2006: 240–45), and pottery and metal sets suitable for commensal feasting (Maniscalco 1999).
The cultural foci in this period are located in the two geographic zones that had determined the outcome of cultural processes in part already in the Early Bronze Age: the cluster of islands, including Ustica, in the southern part of the Tyrrhenian Sea, and the coastal area around Syracuse and Augusta with its series of low-lying headlands and marshes (Lena and Bongiovanni 2004) (Figures 4.2d and 4.4). Both foci have coastal configurations that favour maritime mobility (Broodbank 2006: 219, fig. 3).
On the southern tip of the island of Panarea, opposite Lipari, in the Aeolian archipelago, an agglomeration of huts was set on an eroded cliff-edged headland overlooking a small anchorage (Bernabò Brea and Cavalier 1968). Evidence of the same cultural facies that takes the name of the promontory, Milazzese, was found at similar settlements on far-off Ustica, again on a cliff edge at the site of I Faraglioni (Holloway and Lukesh 1995), on Salina above the rocky shore at Portella (Martinelli 2005), and on the Castello site at Lipari (Bernabò Brea and Cavalier 1980). A predilection for island settlements on positions with either natural defences or purpose-built landward walls, or a combination of the two, is apparent; the site of Mursia on Pantelleria (Tusa 1997b) fits into this ‘island world’, as it has been called (Leighton 1999: 157). Malta is drawn into the same seascape by virtue of several factors: first, the fortified settlement at Borğ in-Nadur, overlooking Marsaxlokk Bay, and similar ones elsewhere, including on Gozo (Evans 1971: 225–26), with ready access to the sea; second, by the characteristic red-slipped pottery of its eponymous facies (phase IIB1), which a recent survey has recorded at 10 sites (amounting to 66 whole pieces) along the eastern Sicilian littoral (Tanasi 2008b: 23–32, fig. 60) and at Monte San Paolillo near Catania where two pots of Borğ in-Nadur type occur with two Mycenaean pieces of LH IIIA1–A2 date and a Baltic amber bead (Tanasi 2010: 87) (Figure 4.4). With the exception of these sites in Sicily, where the centennial tradition of preferring rock-cut funerary chambers continues, evidence of burial is otherwise lacking.
Figure 4.3. (a) EBA Aegean-central Mediterranean contacts in two hypothetical phases based on pottery styles (after Cazzella et al. 2007): 1. and 2. from Olympia, New Museum; 3. ‘Thermi ware’ from Tarxien; 4. and 6. from Olympia, Altis; 5. and 7. from Tarxien Cemetery. (b) Maltese and Sicilian Middle Bronze Age pottery set from tomb 23, Cozzo del Pantano: ‘Maltese’ pieces: 8. inv. 11242; 9. inv. 11264; 10. inv. 11246; ‘Sicilian’ pieces: 11. inv. 11238; 12. inv. 11248; 13. inv. 11266 (drawings by C. Veca). (c) Late Bronze Age (Bronzo Finale) pottery from Sicily and Malta: 14. ‘Proto-Elymian’ bowl from Verderame (after Tusa 1992); 15. bowl fragment from Bahrija (after Peet 1910); 16. bowl from Bahrija, B/P.103 (drawn by D. Calì). Redrawn by Maxine Anastasi.
Figure 4.4. Distribution of Sicilian and Maltese Bronze Age pottery, identified macroscopically, together with other sites mentioned in the text. A hypothetical outward and return journey from Sicily to the Maltese Islands is included. Drawing by Maxine Anastasi.
At the coastal centre of Thapsos (Figure 4.4, inset), on the tip of the Magnisi peninsula, between Augusta and Syracuse, a different world beckons. Archaeologists distinguish three phases of use on Thapsos pegged to a Mycenaean chronological yardstick (Alberti 2007; Tanasi 2011b): the first one (corresponding to LH IIIA1) characterised by a settlement of round and subcircular huts often accompanied by rectangular rooms set in compounds fronting a number of pathways; the second phase (LH IIIA2) marked by the construction of two buildings with a rectilinear arrangement of rooms around a paved area (the so-called complex A and complex B), located not far from the first; and the third one (LH IIIB) when both parts of the settlement were in use. Burial in the first two phases took place in three separate areas, with about 325 chamber tombs to the north of the residential zone, others between the settlement and the sea and about 20 jar burials in an isolated spot in the middle of the peninsula.
An exhaustive, contextual examination of the burial and settlement evidence has allowed archaeologists to shed some light on the social structure of the Thapsos community. Although Alberti (2006) concluded that this would have belonged to an incipient chiefdom type by the second phase of the site’s history, no clear evidence for political stratification can be made out. Instead, the evidence marshalled may fit the level of a ‘trans-egalitarian’ society, where inequality is dependent on the dominant position sought in small groups by certain individuals (Tanasi 2008a: 168–70; Palermo et al. 2009: 55). The dominant position in this case is borne out of contact with ‘foreignness’, although other factors may have had a role too. Indeed, negating the possibility that Thapsos was a Mycenaean colony (also Militello 2004: 327–28; Blake 2008: 22), Alberti (2006) suggests that a restricted indigenous group would have had access to foreigners who were purveyors of knowledge related to metal crafts. These may have included Cypriots if we go by Cypriot-type Base Ring II and White Shaved pottery found in tombs in association with the so-called ‘Thapsos rapier’ for which a Cypriot origin has been claimed (D’Agata 1986: 105–106); but it is far from clear whether this pottery was produced in Sicily (Karageorghis 1995) or imported from the Levant (Vagnetti 2001a: 80; 2001b: 101) or, indeed, from Cyprus itself (Alberti 2006). Be that as it may, markers of values associated with status included not only items in metal, especially bronze, but also other types of pottery: imports in the first phase of Thapsos’ history, followed by copies in the subsequent phase. Potters copied Mycenaeanforms which are absent in the first phase, vessels which in the Aegean were not used for ‘domestic’ purposes but only for special symposia-type gatherings. Alberti suggests that the prototypes would only have been seen by the members of the restricted group during special encounters where liquids would have been consumed from sets used for the purpose. Those sets also seem to have included Maltese or Maltese-type pottery (Vella et al. 2011: 272–73, tables 9.1, 9.2), in particular a two-handled bowl, an open-mouthed jug and a pedestalled basin (Figure 4.3b). In Malta, these occur together in a special area of the reused prehistoric temple at Borğ in-Nadur, referred to as ‘Double Chapel’ (Murray 1929: pl. 25; Tanasi 2008b: 77, fig. 59c), from where a fragment of a Mycenaean LH IIIA2–IIIB1 drinking cup (kylix) was recovered (Blakolmer 2005: 658). The set also occurs at Cozzo del Pantano (tomb 23) on the banks of the river Ciane (Tanasi 2011b: 292, table 10.2) and at coastal Matrensa (tomb 6: Tanasi 2008b: 40–49). The surface finish of the Maltese pottery (a highly polished red fabric: period IIB1) and the shape of certain types which seem to be imitating metal prototypes (Tanasi 2008b: 78) suggest that the choice of pottery vessels which arrived in Sicily was borne by a commitment to partake in a social network characterised by a new set of values (Tanasi 2011b: 302–308).
Alberti’s suggestion that, at Thapsos, knowledge traditions associated with skilled crafting existed finds support in ethnographic work (Helms 1993) that does not trivialise information exchange (of the sort ‘drinking enhances sociability’) in ritual settings. It also shifts the emphasis from Mycenaean pottery considered in isolation (Blake 2008) to one where the acquisition and social rationing of knowledge associated with crafting and transacting by certain individuals or a group, related to spatially distant overseas realms, is given local agency. If those on either side of what ancient geographers called the ‘Sicilian channel’ between Sicily and the Peloponnese (Prontera 1996: 205) got what they wanted in social and political terms, as would appear to be the case, even for Aegean prospectors who made eastern Sicily a compulsory staging-post, then we have a maritory in the Bronze Age longue durée.
What remains to be explained is the role Malta may have played in the escalating mobility that characterises the Bronze Age in this period. This role has been downplayed by the insignificant number of foreign objects found on Malta, essentially the single Mycenaean sherd from Borğ in-Nadur just mentioned, and another one – of LH IIIB date – discovered in 2004 at the site of Tas-Silğ also overlooking Marsaxlokk Bay (Sagona 2008: 496, fig. 6.1). A recent ongoing study of the pottery held in the stores of the National Museum of Archaeology is, however, altering the picture. To date, 71 handmade sherds typical of Sicilian Middle Bronze Age pottery (especially Thapsos second and third phases) have been identified among material from the sites of Borğ in-Nadur (Murray’s excavations; 42 sherds) and Baħrija, the impregnable site on the northwest coast of Malta excavated by T. E. Peet in 1909 (28 sherds; Tanasi 2010: 108), and from the hilltop site of In-Nuffara in central Gozo (one sherd; Tanasi 2011a: 148, fig. 4.52) (Figure 4.4). The pottery is handmade with a grey-brown burnished fabric containing chamotte and volcanic grit, with incised or applied decoration consisting of chevrons or rope-bands respectively. In two cases, the pot profile could be reconstructed and is comparable with the pedestal cups of the Thapsos facies (third phase) on Sicily and the carinated pedestal cups with incurving rim (Thapsos, second phase) common in the eastern and west-central parts of the island. In addition, the same Thapsos-type pottery has been recently identified at Tas-Silğ in Malta (northern enclosure; Recchia and Cazzella 2011: 388).
Furthermore, the argument that Maltese textiles, for which some evidence exists (Tanasi 2008b: 20), would not have been exchanged (Blakolmer 2005: 658–59) belittles the specialness that exotic drapery might have had in the eyes of the consumers (cf. Foxhall 1998: 304–305, for the Archaic period). Be that as it may, if we assume that one of the routes that took Mycenaeans west went along the south coast of Sicily, as many contend (La Rosa 2005: 580; Marazzi and Tusa 2005: 607, pl. 148), then we need to factor in the difficulties of sailing beyond Sicily’s southeastern cape from the east (Purdy 1826: 151; Arnaud 2008: 24–25; Freller 2009: 87–102). This would have first required heading ‘out there’ in the direction of the string of Maltese islands (which extend for about 23° on the horizon) before travelling northward with the prevailing northwesterly wind (Figure 4.4). Seacraft of the time appear to have been equipped with a brail rig and may have just about been able to proceed to windward (Wachsmann 1998: 251–54). Sicilian and Maltese islanders, in particular, who inhabited a fundamental seamark and waypoint, could have possessed the skill necessary to proceed westwards by boat in this manner. It is knowledge, we would like to argue, which lent the Maltese islanders a social position of relevance in the ritual gatherings of knowledge traditions in the huts at Thapsos.
Restraint and Regional Mobility in the Extended Late Bronze Age (ca. 1250–850 BC)
If knowledge about metallurgy and the use of metals had hitherto been rationed or restrained, it exploded in the course of the Late Bronze Age – Bronzo Tardo and Bronzo Finale in traditional Sicilian terminology (Table 4.1) – and the south-central Mediterranean appears to have been caught in the technology that made the world go round at the time (Pare 2000). This is evident from the distribution of finds, especially casting moulds found in settlements such as Cannatello and inland hilltop centres such as Sabucina, Pantalica and Morgantina (Albanese Procelli 1996). Furthermore, the increase in the number of settlements in the metalliferous zone of the Monti Peloritani in northeast Sicily is indicative of potential extraction already in the Late Bronze Age (Giardino 1996). All this happens while tumultuous events taking place beyond the eastern and northern horizons of Sicily altered established settlement and mobility patterns: coastal centres, such as Thapsos (Alberti 2007; Tanasi 2009b), were abandoned, whereas coastal Cannatello had its fortification wall amplified, but the settlement was eventually destroyed, as was that of Mursia on Pantelleria (Ardesia et al. 2006). At the same time, the palatial system collapsed in the Aegean, resulting in restrainted Mycenaean connections with the central Mediterranean, as reflected in the limited amount of LH IIIC sherds found in the Aeolian isles (Vianello 2005: 127–30). Luxury objects, however, did trickle into eastern and southern Sicily (Tanasi 2004), possibly with refugees, mercenaries or displaced groups, who appear to have provided prototypes for the production of imitation Mycenaean (LH IIB2–IIIC) vessels (Tanasi 2005). Moreover, successive movements of groups from Calabria in southern Italy have been linked to destructions in the same archipelago and the establishment only on Lipari of two new successive cultural horizons termed Ausonian I and II, derivatives of the Italian ‘Sub-Appenine’ culture (Bietti Sestieri 2003; this volume).
The effects of these movements on cultural developments in inland Sicily are hard to define, and the resulting culture zones, or regional systems, are fuzzy at the edges, both spatially and chronologically. During the period 1250 to 1050 BC, the culture of Pantalica North/Montagna di Caltagirone affects most of eastern Sicily, with hilltop sites becoming common for settlement and burial in rock-cut tombs prevailing along the often precipitous edges. Even if we dismiss any form of Mycenaean inspiration for the large rectangular edifice at Pantalica (Leighton 2011: 456 contra Tomasello 2004) that is ascribed to the Late Bronze Age date (Bernabò Brea 1990), it would be hard to explain the introduction of multi-chambered tombs in addition to the more common tholos-type burials without reference to Late Helladic prototypes (Tanasi 2004). Over the next 200 years, a fragmentation into a series of regional cultural systems, a so-called mixed facies displaying hybrid characteristics of peninsular and Sicilian traits is noted in east-central Sicily at Metapiccola, Molino della Badia/Madonna del Piano, Cittadella, which develops against a culture rooted in local tradition, termed Cassibile (Albanese Procelli 2003). In central Sicily, around Agrigento, is a cultural tradition that recalls Thapsos in its heyday, associated in particular with the sites of Sant’Angelo Muxaro and Polizzello (Palermo 1996); and in west-central Sicily, encounters between Italic and local peoples give rise to a tradition defined as ‘northern Ausonian’ (Castellana 1992) and ‘Proto-Elymian’ (Tusa 1992).
Life on the Maltese islands would appear to have gone on in imperceptible rhythms of human response to a precarious islandscape. People were living in hilltop or promontory settlements with access to springs and fertile agricultural land, the produce of which was put away in rock-cut silos (Pace 2004: 226); the seaviews that the settlements commanded are a telling reminder that maritime interaction was not far off the islanders’ minds. In fact, sufficient evidence can be marshalled to show how the islanders came to be part of the south-central Mediterranean mobility that picked up towards the close of the millennium (Figure 4.2e), possibly to mingle with the iron-carrying groups from peninsular Italy, who frequented if not actually resided on Thapsos (Albanese Procelli 2003: 99–100). The evidence consists of two ceramic data sets, some of which has been presented recently but which for the most part remains unpublished. The first one relates to Borğ in-Nadur type pottery in Sicily (periods IIB2 but mostly IIB3: Figure 4.4) at the coastal site of Cannatello near Agrigento, dating to about the mid-twelfth century BC (Vanzetti’s intermediate phase II/III of the site). There are also 13 pots from resettled Thapsos dating to the tenth or ninth century BC (Alberti’s [2007] Thapsos phase IV, Cassibile facies; Vella et al. 2011: 274, table 9.3) and a bowl from the inland site of Polizzello in west-central Sicily (first half of the ninth century BC; Vella et al. 2011: 274, table 9.3).
The second data set relates to 44 pottery imports of types that belong to the facies Pantalica North/Montagna di Caltagirone and Cassibile/Ausonian II recently identified by Tanasi amidst material held in the stores of the National Museum of Archaeology in Malta (Figure 4.4). This material comes from excavations in the settlement at Borğ in-Nadur but some of it also comes from the site’s reoccupied temple area, as well as that of Tas-Silğ, and from the settlement sites of Baħrija and In-Nuffara (Vella et al. 2011: 275, table 9.4). It is hard to assess the significance of the mobility patterns in this third cycle, largely because the recognisable pottery styles cannot be pinned down to specific areas, in particular those belonging to the Ausonian II facies. Eastern Sicily, however, especially the area around Catania, would appear to have acted as a focus if we go by the marked Maltese preference for imported strainer jugs, geometrically incised and highly polished red fabrics and triple-handled lids; these are all diagnostic elements that occur together at the site of Montagna di Caltagirone (Tanasi 2008a). Western Sicily, on the other hand, is drawn into the Maltese island-world by virtue of a type of pottery identified by Tusa (1992) at Verderame near Trapani and Segesta-Monte Barbaro. Dating to the first half of the ninth century BC, its decorative features – incised and impressed geometric designs including complex meanders and triangles (Figure 4.3c: 14) – have been linked to the region of Daunia in Puglia and find exact parallels in the advanced Borğ in-Nadur–style pottery production identified only at the site of Baħrija (Murray 1934) (Figure 4.3c: 15 and 16). Tusa (1992) has no doubt that a migratory group from Sicily would have brought this pottery style to Malta. The lack of contextual evidence, associated in particular with funerary rituals, from Malta for this period, however, does not allow us to associate such a pottery style with a foreign presence on the island (Arnold 2005).
It is clear that maritime interactions were nothing new towards the end of the second millennium BC. The key question is whether the small-scale maritime traffic that linked the different regions of Sicily and its offshore islands during the latter part of the Late Bronze Age can be defined as ‘maritories’. On current evidence, we cannot assess how far those interactions may have acquired a pivotal role in determining social values for those communities living on either side of a channel or stretch of sea, or those in inland territories. The networks within which Sicily and the surrounding islands were caught up over the following five centuries involved first of all Nuragic Sardinia (Lo Schiavo 2005) and possibly Iberia; later they included the Phoenician and Greek ones (Tanasi 2009a; Hodos, this volume). These are symptomatic of what Broodbank (2010: 258–59) has called ‘the shrinking of the Mediterranean’, brought about by the impact of the sailing ship with all the effects of that technology. Most particularly, perhaps, they brought formerly distant peoples and lifestyles together, carried bulk commodities rather than just valuables to far-flung ports and extended the margins of the ‘exotic’ farther away from the familiar to include the Atlantic coasts of Europe and Africa, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.
Conclusion: Mobility and South-Central Mediterranean Island Networks
In this chapter, an attempt has been made to understand the mobility that characterises the various south-central Mediterranean island groups over roughly two millennia. In spite of the broad brushstrokes that we have used to understand maritime interactions, certain patterns of island networks have clearly emerged. To conclude, we consider these patterns and their ramifications.
First, two millennia of archaeological time translate into cycles of maritime mobility centred around ‘nodes’ in several island networks (Figure 4.2). These formed out of the necessity to travel overseas, to identify convenient waypoints, to find safe anchorage and to seek food, water, resources and knowledge. These nodes are small islands such as Lipari, Filicudi, Ustica, Malta and Gozo with their coastal settlements, and near-islands such as prominent peninsulas like Thapsos and Ognina off and along the façade maritime of the largest landmass, which is the island of Sicily and with which different groups of islanders interacted. On occasion, islanders appear to have created insular networks which bypassed obvious coastal communities, as for example between Filicudi and Malta. These networks tend to have a deeper ancestry (Lipari and Pantelleria in the Neolithic, for example) and continued to exist in later periods when islands served as extended hinterlands for other insular communities, who used them for pasture, collecting firewood and to obtain grain or even ice from the slopes of Mount Etna.
Figure 4.2. Cycles of mobility in the south-central Mediterranean in the Bronze Age: (a) landfall views of major seamarks; (b) the Sicilian maritime facades along the west, south and east coasts shown in the way they distend on the horizon to those approaching by sea; (c)–(e) travel linking island or near-island nodes in the Sicilian archipelago. Drawing by Maxine Anastasi.
Second, the islands and near-islands were often places where encounters with ‘foreignness’ brought by sea travel took place, whether through migration or prospection by smaller groups, because Sicily’s location on westward maritime routes cannot be underestimated. Understanding the effect of maritime connections in social terms is possible for Middle Bronze Age Thapsos for which it has been proposed that rationing exotic knowledge was important to regulate social reproduction, something which appears to have involved the Maltese islanders. It is also possible that the demarcation of Thapsos’s coastal edge with burials facing the sea was intentional as a way to mark the boundary of social, if not ideological, transformations through rituals involving the dead. But more research into the role played by a cosmological differentiation of the sea and the perceptual relations of islanders and coastal communities is required.
Third, we are aware that representations of islands are often a reflection of the complex relationship between spatial perceptions and historical circumstance. This can be illustrated, for instance, by the way the position of the Maltese Islands has been altered by different writers at different times: for Pseudo-Scylax and Hecateus, both writing in the fifth century BC, Gozo and Malta are African and defined in relation to Carthage; for the first-century BC writer Diodorus Siculus, Malta lies beyond that part of Sicily to the south; for the Latin author Ovid, Malta is lapped by the Libyan Sea; for the Renaissance cartographers of Ptolemy’s Geography, the islands have to appear in a map of Europe. The physical position of Malta never changed of course, but the perceptions of mobile persons – seafarers, geographers and travellers – did change and often impinged on cartographic and historical endeavours that in turn mirror shifting political and ideological realities. We say this because we are aware that without written texts, it may be difficult to model the workings of an island network in detail over the long term. But material culture, once it has been recognised (often by mobile researchers), provenanced and its significance understood, can go a long way to provide an outline such as the one presented here to structure debates which we hope will follow.
Acknowledgements
We are especially grateful to the editors of the handbook, Peter van Dommelen and Bernard Knapp, for their patience when successive deadlines were not met and for their constructive feedback. Orazio Palio (Catania) kindly commented on an early draft. Part of the research carried out by one of us (D.T.) in Malta has been supported by a generous grant from the Institute of Aegean Prehistory (2010–11). At the National Museum of Archaeology (Malta), Sharon Sultana, Reuben Grima, MariaElena Zammit and Vanessa Ciantar have endured the multiple requests for assistance in recovering material with unflagging zeal; for this we are thankful. The results of this research, and additional work done since this chapter was written in 2010, have been published in detail elsewhere (Tanasi and Vella 2011; 2014). This work was supported by grants from The Shelby White-Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications.