Early settlement in Agrigento
Not recent news, and I had lifting whole stories for quotes, but I need a record of the news story and it looks like it’s disappearing from ANSA.
Agrigento, January 17 — Archaeologists working in Sicily’s Valley of the Temples have found traces of a settlement thought to pre-date the famous Greek temples built there in around 600 BC .
The valley near Agrigento on Sicily’s southern coast is one of Europe’s most important archeological sites. It marks a sacred area built when Greeks landed there to start the civilisation of Magna Grecia in southern Italy .
The discovery of a structure possibly built before the Greeks arrived came during preparatory work ahead of a project to shore up the ground near the Temple of Hera. Archaeologists uncovered a mysterious walled structure on top of which ancient Greeks had apparently built a shrine and a burial ground .
Until now it has been thought that Agrigento was settled by the Greeks soon after they began starting colonies in much of the Mediterranean in the 7th century BC .
“It has not yet been possible to establish precisely when these remains date back to,” cautioned Pietro Meli, head of the agency which administrates the Valley of the Temples archaeological park .
Meli said fixing a date would be possible if and when archaeologists found pieces of clay vessels or ceramics, which would provide clear evidence .
He noted that the settlement appeared to have been built along the line of the ancient road to Gela, a town about 70 km southeast of Agrigento .
Several finds dating back to ancient Greek and early Christian times were also made recently. Experts found what appeared to be a Christian burial ground and an earlier Greek temple, digging up small statues, incense holders and lanterns .
There are eight temples, most of them well-preserved, in the Valley of the Temples. In the 5th century BC, at the height of Agrigento’s power and wealth, there are said to have been 21 temples there .
“I’m sure there’s still a lot waiting to be discovered,” Meli said .
The present site, which draws thousands of tourists a year, was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997.
From http://ansa.it/main/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2006–01-17_2386177.html
Thanks to Archaeology in Europe for making a note of this. I’d mislaid my copy of the link.
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Why is the record of this “disappearing from ANSA”? Sometimes I have fits trying to find a link or article I might have read only a few hours before. Do you suppose in this case it is just (server) space-saving on the part of this organization? It seems odd.
It could be space saving or it could be licencing. Some material, particularly AP, is only licenced for 30 days. I had to pull this from Google’s cache.
In the case of the BBC they tend not to delete stories, but over-write them as updates come in, which from a historian’s perspective is a tad annoying. It’s a time when there’s more text than ever and potentially a Dark Age.
More text than ever. Speaking of which, I “tagged” you to answer some questions, if you want to of course. You have a very astute perspective, and I’m sure you would give some intelligent answers.