Pantelleria (; Sicilian: ''Pantiddirìa'', Maltese: ''Pantellerija'' or ''Qawsra''), the ancient Cossyra or Cossura, is an Italian island and comune in the

Strait of Sicily The Strait of Sicily (also known as Sicilian Strait, Sicilian Channel, Channel of Sicily, Sicilian Narrows and Pantelleria Channel; it, Canale di Sicilia or the Stretto di Sicilia; scn, Canali di Sicilia or Strittu di Sicilia, ar, مضيق ص ...

in the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

, southwest of

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

and east of the

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

n coast. On clear days Tunisia is visible from the island. Administratively Pantelleria's comune belongs to the Sicilian province of Trapani. The population of Pantelleria 2022 was 7,335 in 2022, according to istat.it.

Description

With an area of , Pantelleria is the largest volcanic satellite island of Sicily. The last eruption occurred below sea level in 1891, and today phenomena related to volcanic activity are present, such as hot springs and fumaroles. The highest peak, the ''Montagna Grande'', reaches above sea level. The islanders speak Pantesco, a dialect of Sicilian influenced by Arabic.

Names

The

Carthaginians The Punic people, or western Phoenicians, were a Semitic people in the Western Mediterranean who migrated from Tyre, Phoenicia to North Africa during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' – the Latin equivalent of the ...

knew the island as ( xpu, 𐤉𐤓𐤍𐤌) or (). The Greek geographers recorded it as ''Kossyra'' ( grc, Κόσσυρα) and ''Kossyros'' (), which became the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

. This appears in

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

as ''Qawṣirah'' () and Maltese as the former name . The original Arab name for the island was ''Bint al-Riyāh'' (Arabic: and Maltese: ''Bint l-Irjieħ''), meaning "Daughter of the Winds" after the strong gales that can arise off the north coast of Africa. Its Sicilian name is , which gave rise to the present Maltese name .

History

Pantelleria Sese grande o Sese del Re (1017196158)

The earliest evidence of human activity dates to the Neolithic period distinguished for its use of obsidian tools and construction of stone structures and tombs known locally as "Sese". The original population of Pantelleria did not come from Sicily, but were of Iberian or Ibero- Ligurian ancestry. After a considerable interval, during which the island probably remained uninhabited, the

took possession of it, no doubt owing to its importance as a station on the way to Sicily. This probably occurred around the beginning of the 7th centuryBC. Their acropolis was the twin hill of San Marco and Santa Teresa, south of the present town of Pantelleria. The town has considerable remains of walls made of rectangular blocks of masonry and also of a number of cisterns. Punic tombs have been discovered, and the votive terra-cottas of a small sanctuary of the Punic period were found near the north coast. The Romans occupied the island as the ''

Fasti Triumphales The ''Acta Triumphorum'' or ''Triumphalia'', better known as the ''Fasti Triumphales'', or Triumphal Fasti, is a calendar of Roman magistrates honoured with a celebratory procession known as a ''triumphus'', or triumph, in recognition of an imp ...

'' record in 255BC, lost it again the next year, and recovered it in 217BC. It struck bronze coins, originally with a Punic inscription but changing to

by the 1st centuryBC. Under the

empire An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...

, it served as a place of banishment for prominent persons and members of the imperial family. The town enjoyed municipal rights. In AD700,

Arabs The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

conquered the island. In 1123, Roger II of Sicily took the island, and in 1311 an Aragonese fleet under the command of Lluís de Requesens won a considerable victory here. Requesens's family became princes of Pantelleria until 1553, when the Turks captured the island. A naval battle took place near the island in July 1586 when an armed English merchant fleet of five ships managed to repel an attack by eleven Spanish and Maltese galleys. A

Siculo-Arabic Siculo-Arabic ( ar, الْلهجَة الْعَرَبِيَة الْصَقلِيَة), also known as Sicilian Arabic, is the term used for varieties of Arabic that were spoken in the Emirate of Sicily (which included Malta) from the 9th century ...

dialect similar to Maltese was the vernacular of the island until the late 18th century, when the Romance Sicilian superseded it. The modern Sicilian language in Pantelleria contains many

loanwords, and most of the island's place names are of Semitic origin. During the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fre ...

, the British considered the possibility of taking over Pantelleria (together with

Lampedusa Lampedusa ( , , ; scn, Lampidusa ; grc, Λοπαδοῦσσα and Λοπαδοῦσα and Λοπαδυῦσσα, Lopadoûssa; mt, Lampeduża) is the largest island of the Italian Pelagie Islands in the Mediterranean Sea. The '' comune'' of ...

and Linosa) so as to be able to supply

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

, but a Royal Commission stated in an 1812 report that there would be considerable difficulties in this venture. Pantelleria's capture was regarded as crucial to Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943 as planes based on Pantelleria could readily reach Sicily. In Operation Corkscrew the Allies bombarded Pantelleria heavily from air and sea in the days before the invasion. The garrison surrendered as the landing troops approached. Pantelleria then became a vital base for Allied aircraft during the assault on Sicily.

Archaeological sites

A Middle

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

village was on the west coast, southeast of the harbour, with a rampart of small blocks of lava, about high, wide at the base and at the top, upon the undefended eastern side. Remains of huts were found there, with pottery, tools of obsidian, and other artifacts. These objects are in the museum at Syracuse. To the southeast, in the district known as the Cunelie, are many tombs, known as ''sesi''. They are similar in character to the nuraghe of Sardinia, though of smaller size, and consist of round or elliptical towers with sepulchral chambers in them, built of rough blocks of lava. Fifty-seven of them can still be traced. The largest is an ellipse of about , but most of the ''sesi'' have a diameter of only . The identical character of the pottery found in the ''sesi'' with that found in the prehistoric village proves that the former are the tombs of the inhabitants of the latter.

Monuments and other buildings

The island has scattered typical one-level buildings called ''dammuso'' of unknown but probably remote origins. A ''dammuso'' is a

dry stone Dry stone, sometimes called drystack or, in Scotland, drystane, is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. Dry stone structures are stable because of their construction me ...

building with thick walls that usually appear black due to the extensive use of volcanic rock. They have characteristic domes on top painted white to avoid overheating. The domes collect rainwater that is directed to a large tank (usually below the building) or to the nearby soil for use in the dry season. Most of the other constructions were destroyed during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. One notable exception is the castle ''Barbacane'', a renaissance building formed by an irregularly quadrangular plan with internal court joined to a squared base tower.

Geology

Volcanic Rocks on Pantelleria in Italy 001

The island of Pantelleria is located above a drowned continental rift in the

and has been the focus of intensive volcano-tectonic activity. The 15 kilometre-long () island is the emergent summit of a largely submarine edifice. Two large

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

caldera A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcano eruption. When large volumes of magma are erupted over a short time, structural support for the rock above the magma chamber is ...

s dominate the island, the older of the two formed about 114,000 years ago and the younger Cinque Denti caldera formed about 45,000 years ago. The eruption that formed the Cinque Denti caldera produced the distinctive green tuff deposit that covers much of the island, and is found across the Mediterranean, as far away as the island of Lesbos in the Aegean.

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...

eruptions have constructed

pumice cone Volcanic cones are among the simplest volcanic landforms. They are built by ejecta from a volcanic vent, piling up around the vent in the shape of a cone with a central crater. Volcanic cones are of different types, depending upon the nature and s ...

s, lava domes, and short, blocky lava flows. Later activity constructed the cone of Monte Gibele, part of which was subsequently uplifted to form Montagna Grande. Several vents are located on three sides of the uplifted Montagna Grande block on the southeast side of the island. A submarine eruption in 1891 from a vent off the northwest coast is the only confirmed historical activity. Currently the island is subsiding, and Montagna Grande is slowly sinking. This is thought to be caused by the

magma Magma () is the molten or semi-molten natural material from which all igneous rocks are formed. Magma is found beneath the surface of the Earth, and evidence of magmatism has also been discovered on other terrestrial planets and some natura ...

beneath the volcano cooling and degassing. There are numerous

hot spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circ ...

s and fumaroles on the island due to an active hydrothermal system. Favara Grande, in the south east of the island, is one of the best examples. The island is releasing a small amount of CO₂ through passive degassing. Total carbon stock in the first of soil of Pantelleria is about 230,000 tonnes. The island is the type locality for peralkaline

rhyolitic Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals ( phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The ...

rocks, pantellerites.

Climate

Pantelleria has a subtropical Mediterranean climate ( Köppen: ''Csa'') characterized by very warm to hot, almost rainless and humid summers, very mild and frost-free winters, a powerful

seasonal lag Seasonal lag is the phenomenon whereby the date of maximum average air temperature at a geographical location on a planet is delayed until some time after the date of maximum insolation (i.e. the summer solstice). This also applies to the mini ...

and a small

diurnal temperature range In meteorology, diurnal temperature variation is the variation between a high air temperature and a low temperature that occurs during the same day. Temperature lag Temperature lag is an important factor in diurnal temperature variation: peak da ...

. The constant sea breezes, moderate the daytime summer temperatures. Coastal Pantelleria (along with

and coastal

) is one of the very few areas along the Mediterranean Sea coast, which have never recorded frost. Below freezing temperatures and snow only and sporadically occur at Montagna Grande and at higher elevations on the island. Despite the very dry summers and the fairly low annual precipitation, the dry season is noticeably shorter at four months, and the rainy season lasts at least for eight months.

Environment

Pantelleria National Park (Italian: ''Parco Nazionale dell'Isola di Pantelleria'') was established in 2016, and covers an area of , or 80% of the island. Specchio di Venere (literally "Venus' mirror") is a natural lake formed in an extinct volcanic crater, and fed by rain and hot springs. The lake is deep and is popular for swimming, hot springs, and mud bathing. Other natural attractions are paths to the sea, a large network of trekking paths, hot springs, and a popular natural sauna fed by vapours filtering through rocks in a small cave. Also situated on the Island is Laghetto delle Ondine ("Pond of the ripples" or "Pond of the wavelets") a seawater lake which has developed into a very desired swimming hole. The island has been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports a population of Eleonora's falcons, with some 35–40 breeding pairs estimated in 1994.

Wine

Pantelleria is noted for its sweet wines, Moscato di Pantelleria and Moscato Passito di Pantelleria, both made from the local Zibibbo grape. In 2014, the traditional agricultural practice of cultivating the ''vite ad alberello'' (head-trained bush vines) of the community of Pantelleria was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...

Transport

The island is served by Pantelleria Airport, which is served by DAT, connecting Trapani and Palermo and other companies in summer, connecting the island with Italian cities such as

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city ...

, Rome,

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

and others. Ferries reach the island from Trapani, and it is near the main east–west route through the Mediterranean Sea.

Gallery

File:Lago di Venere - Pantelleria, Trapani, Italia - 12 Agosto 2016.jpg, ''Specchio di Venere'' (Venus' mirror) File:Specchio di Venere.jpg, ''Specchio di Venere'' (Venus' mirror) File:Evening - Port, Pantelleria, Trapani, Italy - August 20, 2016.jpg, Port File:Reflection-pantelleria.jpg, Typical white house near the sea File:Pantelleria - Pantelleria, Trapani, Italy - August 17, 2016.jpg, Arid landscape during summer

References

Bibliography

* * . * .

External links

parconazionalepantelleria.it

pantelleria.co.uk
* {{Authority control Carthage Holocene volcanoes Inactive volcanoes Islands of Sicily Municipalities of the Province of Trapani Pleistocene calderas Calderas of Italy Volcanoes of Italy Wine regions of Italy Islands of Africa Phoenician colonies in Sicily Important Bird Areas of Italy Important Bird Areas of Mediterranean islands