Anaktoron at Pantalika
Creators: Lewin Ernest Staine
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temple
{ "type": "Point", "coordinates": [ 15.025667, 37.134221 ] }
Unknown
Certain
representative
- 2nd Millennium BCE (2000-1000 BCE) (confident)
- Early Byzantine (AD 650-850) (confident)
- See Further:
- Citation:
-
- Holloway, R. 2000. The Archaeology of Ancient Sicily. London, New York: Routledge. New edition.
- Leighton, R. 1993. “Sicily During the Centuries of Darkness” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 3: 271-276.
- Leighton, R. 2011. “Pantalica (Sicily) from the Late Bronze Age to the Middle Ages: A New Survey and Interpretation of the Rock-Cut Monuments” American Journal of Archaeology 115: 447-464.
Pleiades
This building was first investigated by Paolo Orsi, who found Bronze Age material in the vicinity and identified the megalithic, polygonal masonry of one end as the remains of a major Bronze Age structure, which he dubbed the "Anaktoron" (Prince's Palace). If it can indeed be associated with the 12th-11th centuries BC, it is one of the earliest structures at Pantalica. Orsi suggested that the form of the building showed Mycenaean influences, since Mycenaean settlements were established along Sicily's Ionian coast in this period. It has been compared to buildings A and B of the Mycenaean settlement at Thapsos.
On the other hand, most of the remains of the building and the objects associated with the final phase of its use date to the Byzantine period (6th-11th c. AD), and more recent interpretations insist that the entire structure should be associated with Byzantine rather than prehistoric settlement at the site.