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            PREHISTORIC AND ANCIENT MUSSOMELI

The territory of Mussomeli, in the middle valley of the Platani, the ancient Halykos, is rich in watercourses, such as the Salito and the Gallo d'Oro, tributaries of the Platani, and the Belici and Fiumicello streams, which nave represented important natural communication routes between the inland areas of Sicily.
These fluvial routes, as well as the presence of some springs, in antiquity already created favourable conditions for human settlement, which evolved without any break from prehistoric times to the Middle Ages.
The first traces of life in the Mussomeli territory, dating from the Neolithic (6th-5th millennium BC) are made up of ceramic materials and wooden instruments picked up on the surface in the Caccione, Girafi, Grotte, Corvo, Bragamè, Centosalme-Chiapperia, Frà Gaetano and Polizzello areas.
Also fairly well represented is the period of the Bronze Age (4th-3th millennium BC).
The most likely places of settlement at that lime would seem to have been the rocky crags of the Bragamè, Corvo, Dammuso, Tre Fontane-Carlina, Grotte Cangioli, Edera, Girafi and Polizzello heights, already occupied by more ancient human settlements.
The territory appears to have been more populated during the Ancient Bronze Age (2200-1450 BC), when farmers and shepherds settled there who lived by exploiting the potential of the soil and occupied the heights near the rivers with their villages.
Remains of settlements with rock necropolises and artificial grotto graves hewn out in the sides of the rock walls have been identified at Corvo, Bragamè, Cangioli, Polizzello and Cicuta.
If so far only scattered traces of settlements from the Later and Final Bronze Ages (13th-9th centuries BC) have been found, the archaeological documentation becomes clearer in the subsequent Iron Age, when in the territory, which lies in the heart of the ancient Sikania, small villages arose on more easily defensible peaks controlling the penetration routes.
The Mount Raffe, Caccione and Dammuso became the seats of the new dwellings gravitating on the hegemonic centre of the Polizzello mountain.
Situated on a stubby and massive calcareous relief, it emerges in an isolated position at the centre of a big flat area.
The Piano di Città terrace on the height, which in its name alludes to its original destination, at that time gave hospitality to the settlement areas which developed at the foot of a higher plateau, occupied by the fortified acropolis, accessible from the south-east, while the rock necropolises, with the chamber tombs, often preceded by a dromos or by an outdoor area for ritual ceremonies, were placed on the rock walls.
The Polizzello site, also on account of its ceramic and bronze productions, is suggested as a pole of Sican-Aegean culture, with a social strutture of an urban type, a culture greatly enlivened by the contribution from overseas and one in which the craft of the bronze artist went side by side with sheep raising and other agricultural activity.
Life was to go on even in the heart of the Greek age at Girafi, Bragamè, Caccione and the Monte Raffe.
The latter, for example, with the remains of a terrace settlement built inside a fortification wall, used between the 6th and 4th centuries BC, is certainly one of the indigenous sites that were involved in the phenomenon of Hellenisation.
The Mussomeli territory, which until the 4th century BC lay at the confine of the area of Gela and Akragas influence, entered the Carthaginian orbit and was also chosen for settlements which often arose where previous ones had been, in places well suited to being strongholds. This is the case of Bragamè and Girafi, in which life went on in the Republican and late ancient periods (1st-4th centuries AD).
Subsequently, the peopling of the territory shows no interruption until the thirteenth century, when an imposing castle was built there.

                                                                               

                                                                                  

 

 

                                                                        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

SITE ARCHAEOLOGICAL OF CANGIOLI - TOMBS

             

          

      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

          SITE OF CANGIOLI - COVES IN THE STONE                                             

                         

POLIZZELLO - NECROPOLISES

  VASE FROM MOUNT RAFFE

The cove of Chelli, one mysterious

cavern with view and panoramic window

Mount Raffe, with the rests of living to terraces inside constructed of a wall of fortification, used between the VI° and the IV° century. to C. it is sure one of the situated aborigines who it was interested from the phenomenon of the Greek.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       MOUNT RAFFE - SCALE IN THE STONE