Monte Bubbonìa is a hill located in the

comune A (; : , ) is an administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions () and provinces (). The can also have the City status in Italy, titl ...

of Mazzarino, about twenty kilometres from the city of

Gela Gela (Sicilian and ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the regional autonomy, Autonomous Region of Sicily, Italy; in terms of area and population, it is the largest municipality on the southern coast of Sicily. Gela is part of the Province o ...

. It consists of three platforms, descending from west to east (i.e. the westernmost platform is also the highest). The site is reached by travelling along the SS 117 Gela-

Catania Catania (, , , Sicilian and ) is the second-largest municipality on Sicily, after Palermo, both by area and by population. Despite being the second city of the island, Catania is the center of the most densely populated Sicilian conurbation, wh ...

, taking the turn-off for

Piazza Armerina Piazza Armerina (Gallo-Italic of Sicily: ''Ciazza''; Sicilian: ''Chiazza'') is a ''comune'' in the province of Enna of the autonomous island region of Sicily, southern Italy. History The city of Piazza (as it was called before 1862) developed ...

, driving for , until a side road appears on the left, the old road to Mazzarino, marked by a sign which shows the street on an ancient Roman route map known as the Itinerarium Antonini. The shape of the hill, from a geological point of view, is relatively recent, with the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

limestone base covered by

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

marl Marl is an earthy material rich in carbonate minerals, Clay minerals, clays, and silt. When Lithification, hardened into rock, this becomes marlstone. It is formed in marine or freshwater environments, often through the activities of algae. M ...

with

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension (chemistry), suspension with water. Silt usually ...

and

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

grains, then finally by very red sand which is very crumbly and dusty. Below the curb of a dirt road which runs up the east side of the hill towards the acropolis, there is a chamber

dolmen A dolmen, () or portal tomb, is a type of single-chamber Megalith#Tombs, megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the Late Neolithic period (4000 ...

, the shape of which has similarities to structures in

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia an ...

and

Apulia Apulia ( ), also known by its Italian language, Italian name Puglia (), is a Regions of Italy, region of Italy, located in the Southern Italy, southern peninsular section of the country, bordering the Adriatic Sea to the east, the Strait of Ot ...

. On the summit of the mountain, Paolo Orsi discovered an ancient city which the archaeologist Piero Orlandini later identified as the Sican settlement of Maktorion, known from

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

7.53. However, the ruins do not seem to predate the 6th century BC, and this makes Orlandini's identification unlikely.Eugenio Manni
Greci in Sicilia tra l'VIII e il VI secolo

Gallery

File:Dolmenmontebubbonia.jpg, Dolmen File:Monte Bubbonia 1.JPG File:Monte Bubbonia 2.JPG File:Monte Bubbonia 3.JPG File:Panorama da Monte Bubbonia.JPG, View looking south from Monte Bubbonia

References

Bibliography

* Paolo Orsi - Domenico Pancucci, "Esplorazioni a Monte Bubbonia dal 1904 al 1906", in ''Archivio storico Siracusano'', N.S. 2 (1972–73), pp. 5–60; * D. Pancucci, "Monte Bubbonia. Scavi nel quadriennio 1972-75", in ''Kokalos'', 22-23 (1976–77), pp. 470–478; * D. Pancucci, "Monte Bubbonia. Scavi nella Necropoli", in ''Sicilia Archeologica'',6.23 (1973), pp. 49–55; * Salvatore Piccolo (2013), ''Ancient Stones: The Prehistoric Dolmens of Sicily'', Brazen Head Publishing, Thornham/Norfolk (UK), .

External links

* {{Authority control Bubbonia Archaeological sites in the province of Caltanissetta Ancient cities in Sicily Archaeological sites in Sicily