THE ORIENTED ALTARS OF ROCCA PIZZICATA AND THE ROCKY SITES OF ALCANTARA VALLEY

Abstract

The Alcantara Valley is one of the most famous natural and archaeological area in Sicily but paradoxically is the least studied and valued. While for the part of nature there is the „Ente Parco Fluviale Dell'Alcantara‟, one of the five Sicilian regional parks, on the other, for the archaeological‟s one, the fact that the river divides the area into two administrative courts, or two provinces, has caused an abandonment of the sites and the complete lack of interest. The project 'the Rock Sites of the Akesines: by the Sicels to the Byzantines', directed by the Institute of Sicilian Archaeoastronomy in partnership with the Soprintendenza and the University of Catania, plans to map all rock sites of Alcantara Valley and study its astronomical orientations in order to realized, in a later stage, a real tourist itinerary. One of the most fascinating sites certainly is Rocca Pizzicata, where there are several man-made emergencies, including a rare rock altar facing east. But starting from the eastern side of the Alcantara Valley, near the ancient Naxos, where lie the remains of the first Greek colony in Sicily, these sites are numerous, and among them we must surely be included: Petra Perciata, Rocca Perciata, Rocca Badia, Rocca S. Maria la Scala , Monti Orgali-Cucco, Monte Balsamà, Passo Monte Moio, Serra Cinquonze and Sciare di S. Venera, located in the border‟s territory that divides the Alcantara Valley from the Simeto Valley. The study of the orientations of the small rocky necropolis will be placed in the larger study produced at the end of the twentieth century from Sebastiano Tusa and Giorgia Foderà Serio.