Fabiola Ardizzone-Elena Pezzini I dati archeologici L'arcipelago delle Egadi, per la sua posizione geografica, porta d'accesso al Mediterraneo occidentale per chi viene dal continente africano, ha rivestito fin dal periodo della dominazione punica un ruolo molto importante nel panorama delle relazioni che hanno legato la Sicilia all'Africa 1 .

Un impianto battesimale nell'isola di Marettimo: cronologia, tipologia e significato di Fabiola ardizzone AbstrAct Key Words: baptistery, font, Marettimo Island (Sicily) On the slopes of the island of Marettimo, at about 250 meters above the sea level it is possible to find an archaeological site with a series of buildings dating from the first century BC to the middle age. Due to its strategic position in the Mediterranean sea, the island of Marettimo has been, around 36 BC, an important military outpost, a lighthouse, used by Sesto Pompeo for the defence of Sicily and later a hermitage for monks seeking for spiritual life. The Roman lighthouse is the best preserved building of its kind in all the Mediterranean sea and, equally exceptional in Sicily, is the Norman church (XII century) deriving from Greek models. Recently, two campaigns of excavations in 1994 and in 2007 have been carried out. During the last campaign what was probably a proto Byzantine monastic centre of the V-VI century AD have been discovered, together with a church -with a nave and two aisles -and a font of the same period. This finding is particularly important as this is the first monastery of this period to be found in Sicily, even though there are written evidences that there must have been a series of hermitages and monasteries in Sicily and in the surrounding islands. The island of Marettimo was along one of the most important sea route of the antique Mediterranean and along the way used by the pilgrims going from Carthage to Rome. The church and its font are similar in plan and building techniques used to those of the Bizacena, in particular to those of Sufetula.

Recenti indagini nell'area della Valle dei Templi di Agrigento, a ridosso del tratto meridionale della cinta muraria di età greca, tra il Tempio di Ercole ad Ovest ed il Tempio della Concordia ad Est, hanno messo in luce i resti di un impianto artigianale per la lavorazione della ceramica comune che consta di due fornaci medievali con annessa un'area attrezzata per le varie fasi del processo produttivo, databili tra l'XI e la prima metà del XII secolo ( ). Questa scoperta si è rivelata particolarmente importante dal momento che si tratta delle prime fornaci di ceramica comune in un periodo compreso tra l'età islamica e quella normanna, scoperte in Sicilia e del primo ampio repertorio morfologico della ceramica locale di questo periodo, a tutt'oggi pochissimo nota 1 .

This famous marble statue is a unique  masterpiece of Greek art of the 5th century BC. It was found in 1979 by the Palermo University expedition on Motya, a Phoenician colony of western Sicily. It represents a youth wearing a diaphanous linen tunic held by a chest-band, standing in a 'contrapposto' pose with one hand on the hip. Is he an athlete, a victorious charioteer, a dancer? A Sikeliot tyrant winner of the Games? Or Melqart, the god of Tyre? a Punic hero in a sacrificial garment? Was this a war booty taken by the Carthaginians during the wars waged in Sicily? Who was the Greek master? What are its style and dating? These various questions have been debated by scholars without reaching so far a common consensus.