| VIA Monte Kronio TEL. 092528989 VISITING HOURS: Wed, Sat, Sun: 9,00 am -1,00 pm / 3,00 - 7,00 pm; FREE ADMISSION |
The Antiquarium is situated outside Sciacca on the top of Kronio mountain where one can admire a wonderful sight. At the entrance a series of panels documents the researches that allowed to establish how S. Calogero grottoes were inhabited in the Prehistoric Age for about three thousand years. They were intensely occupied during the whole Neolithic period (v - iv millennium B.C.) and also in iii millennium during the Copper (or Calcolithic) Age.Towards the end of the latter, around 2.000 B.C.,probably a telluric phenomenon suddenly provoked the flow of vapor which has gone on until the present, so that the grottoes were abandoned. Starting from the 6th century B.C., the Greeks once again started frequenting the outermost part of the grottoes. This is demonstrated by a series of finds that are inside the Antiquarium. Some ancient fills date back to the beginning of Neolithic (7000 B.C.). They are vases with impressed and engraved decoration. Peculiar features are "fingernail" and "cardial" impressions. The incisions include simple geometrical motives in clusters of lines, there are also examples of excisa decoration typical of Kronion and Capri styles, importated 5500 years ago from Southern Italy. Vases with monochrome red surface and typical spool handles, testify Late Neolithic phase and the Diana typical style. Middle Neolithic phase is represented with ceramics imported from peninsular Italy and with an idol in green stone, well smoothed off, representing a bird' s stylized head. It looks like an aquatic bird, to which is associated a cosmic primeval egg which, splitting in two, is supposed to have generated the sky and the hearth.