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Pantelleria Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

David Trump
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Extract

Pantelleria is a small island, 34 square miles or so, lying south of the western end of Sicily and within sight of Cape Bon, the projecting tip of the African coast (FIG. I). Though every ship through the Sicilian straits passes close by, it can be extraordinarily isolated, as we found to our cost on a visit in November, 1962. Winter storms can, and occasionally do, cut it off for days at a time. Despite its archaeological wealth, recorded by Paolo Orsi in 1899 (n. 1), it seems that its isolation has discouraged archaeologists from visiting it since the days of Peet and Zammit, early this century. Its ‘sesi’ have become almost a myth.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 37 , Issue 147 , September 1963 , pp. 203 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1963

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References

(1) P. Orsi, Pantelleria, Monumenti Antichi, IX, 1899, col. 449.

(2) ANTIQUITY, December, 1961, p. 300.

(3) In a paper given by his assistant Dr F. Fussi.

(4) Like the Lipari group, but unlike Lampedusa or Malta, Pantelleria consists entirely of volcanic deposits, some of very recent date.

(5) Traces of a second at the Wardija ta’ San óorg have long been known. Field work in 1961 identified two more, at Ras il-Gebel and Qala Hill in the north of Malta.

(6) The figures are from Orsi.

(7) A twelfth small one, beside the two with a common entrance, is now obscured by fallen rubble.

(8) Orsi found two such floors, equally undated.

(9) This is certainly coincidental as the Roman material covered a much wider area than the obsidian. Obsidian was not a feature at other Roman sites.