An ancient Phoenician city unearthed in Sicily was inhabited after its supposed destruction, the head of an Italian dig team claims. "Our finds, including cooking pans, Phoenecian-style vases, small altars and pieces of looms, show Motya had a thriving population long after it is commonly believed to have been destroyed by the Ancient Greeks," said Maria Pamela Toti.
The continued life of Motya had been put forward by various archaeologists over the years but until now no proof had been found.
Then, early this month, archaeologists said they had found rooms of a new house at a previously unexamined part of one of the city's siege walls. Digging down into the earth there, the new objects were uncovered and found to date to periods after the city's documented destruction by the Greek tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse in 397 BC.
"Now the corroborating evidence has come to light," Toti said.
The fresh finds come hard on the heels of the discovery at Motya of an ancient Phoenician temple dubbed "unique" in the West.
The temple came to light after a portion of a lagoon surrounding Motya (present-day Mozia) was drained. The pool began to fill up again and a fresh-water spring was found - a fact archaeoligists believe proves it was used as a holy place. The Phoenicians are known to have placed their cities on the coast near water springs, which for them meant that there was a divine presence there.
The ruins of a monumental temple include columns of a type used by the Phoenicians on Cyprus - as well as fragments of an obelisk. The temple is similar to the Temple of the Obelisks at Byblos, Lebanon - one of the Phoenicians' earliest cities.
Archaeologists believe the pool flanking the temple was used for water rituals and offerings to Baal, the Phoenician god of the sea and the underworld. Motya - whose name means "wool-spinning centre" - was founded in the 8th century BC, about a century after the foundation of the most famous Phoenician colony in the ancient world, Carthage in Tunisia.
Greeks also began to colonise Sicily at the same time as Motya's foundation and conflicts broke out between Greek and Phoenician settlements. Half a century after Dionysius's attack on the city, Rome's intervention in the Greek-Carthaginian conflicts led to the Roman conquest of Sicily, which became Rome's first province.
The Phoenicians were a trading people who formed a massive commercial empire across the Mediterranean from their
bases in modern-day Lebanon: Tyre, Sidon and Tripoli. Among the Italian cities they founded is today's capital of Sicily, Palermo and the Sardinian capital Cagliari. Other colonies included Cadiz and Malaga in Spain and Tangiers in Morocco.
