Solunto

Solunt: roman-punian city; agora with theatre; peristyl bilding (so called Gymnasium).

The project is under the auspices of the Magna Graecia Department of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Rome Section.

Location

The Hellenistic city is located on the eastern hillside of Monte Catalfano above a natural harbor, 25 km east of Palermo. It was founded in the 4th century B.C. and is the successor of an Archaic Carthiginian trading post located on a promontory by the sea destroyed in 398 B.C. by Dionysios I of Syracuse. This original Punic settlement has been rediscovered only recently through the discovery of remains, none of which are visible above ground.

Objectives

The research is focused on the section of the city which already has been excavated over the last century revealing a characteristic orderly street plan made up of streets intersecting at right angles and equally large residential insulae. Therefore, the research involves becoming familiar with one of the most progressive installations of a type named after the most famous urban planner of antiquity, Hippodamos of Miletus. Furthermore, through the architectural forms and their construction, a picture may be obtained of the different segments of society and of the intermixture of Greek and Punic elements of the city inhabitants. In the course of this, elements of residential architecture (particularly arising from the representative peristyle house), the Agora, the so-called Gymnasium, and especially the Theater have been chosen as the most significant examples. After the publication of the Theater by A. Wiegand, work will be transferred to a study of the residential architecture by M. Wolf of the Technische Universität Cottbus. 

Cooperation

The work is being carried out in cooperation with the Soprintendenza of the Provinz Palermo. The Gerda Henkel Foundations is sponsoring the work on the Theater. 

Bibliography

A. Cutroni Tusa - A. Italia - D. Lima - V. Tusa, Solunto (Roma 1994) (Führer); A. Wiegand, Das Theater von Solunt. Ein besonderer Skenentyp des Späthellenismus auf Sizilien, Sonderschriften des DAI Rom, Band 12 (1997).