INTRODUCTION

North of Syracuse, at the Ionian coast of Sicily, the peninsula of Magnisi, ancient Thapsos, is connected to the Sicilian mainland by a narrow strip of land (Fig. 16.1). Archaeological expeditions initially focused on the tombs near the lighthouse in the north, but settlement remains have been excavated as well, near the isthmus. The earliest traces of human activity on the peninsula date to the Early Bronze Age. All of the tombs and most of the settlement remains belong to the Middle Bronze Age, a period in which Thapsos is a Sicilian type site. A second settlement phase may be dated from the 12th to the 9th centuries BC. Even though tombs were reused in the Iron Age, the peninsula appears to have remained uninhabited.

The settlement at Thapsos is located in the area where the narrow isthmus joins the peninsula (Fig. 16.1). The first settlement phase consisted of small round, oval and irregular huts, while the second phase produced at least two large buildings consisting of rectangular chambers. Necropoleis were situated outside the settlement. Most tombs have been found near the lighthouse along the northern and the north-eastern coasts, but smaller concentrations of tombs have been found in the centre of the peninsula and in the south. The majority of tombs consists of a chamber which is hewn out in the rock. Orsi estimated that some 300 of such tombs were present at Thapsos, of which more than 100 have been excavated. They were used for multiple burials; in two cases almost fifty skeletons were retrieved from one tomb. Apart from these rock-cut tombs, nine enchytrismoi have been found, for which large pithoi were used.

THE MYCENAEAN POTTERY

The thirty-eight Mycenaean vessels and sherds in Catalogue IX derive from the tombs at Thapsos. In the settlement, Mycenaean pottery has also been found. However, these vessels or their contexts have not been published and they are excluded here. None of the material in Catalogue IX has been subject to scientific provenance research. Taylour noted that many of the decorative motifs on the Mycenaean pottery from Thapsos had their best parallels at Chalcis on Euboea in Greece.