The Parochial City at Hellenistic Monte Iato and the World beyond Peristyle House 1
(Western Sicily, 300-190/80 BC)
Around 200 BCE, Monte Iato, a hilltop settlement in western Sicily, after a habitation period of already four centuries had finally achieved the urban shape of a Hellenistic polis with an agora (marketplace), stoai (oblong halls), bouleuterion (political meeting hall), theatre and peristyle houses (luxury residential and meeting buildings).
But this development was a long process – it took the entire 3rd century BCE for Monte Iato to become a place increasingly involved in the ‘international’ affairs of the time. This interaction with the wider Mediterranean world was exploited by local people seeking to gain social power and popularity by appropriating elements of Hellenistic culture, which promised a more cosmopolitan lifestyle.
In the course of these transformations and achievements, however, old traditions were not eliminated. On the contrary: the settlement continued to be shaped by traditional features, reaching back to the local history of the 6th-5th century BCE (the so-called archaic period). Fashionable peristyle houses were built over the ruins of the scattered nuclei of the archaic village, and the Hellenistic roads still followed ancient paths. Furthermore, one of the most significant sacred buildings, the Aphrodite Temple, retained its rustic archaic appearance until Roman times, although Peristyle House 1, situated in its immediate vicinity, represented a monumental manifesto of state-of-the-art cosmopolitan architecture.
At Monte Iato, traditional social structures interacted with the current material traits of a Hellenistic way of life, giving the polis a distinct local look compared to the other cities with orthogonal street grids of Hellenistic Sicily, like Solunto or Lilybaeum. Precisely these apparent contradictions between cosmopolitanism and traditionalism are the focus of the project. They are the subject of the apparent paradox in the project title "The Parochial City at Hellenistic Monte Iato", resulting from the combination of the noun city with the attribute parochial. Parochial here means far more than just the rural location of the settlement at Monte Iato or the fact that western Sicily had been established as Rome's first province after 241 BCE. Parochial here rather denotes the traditional and traditionalistic, which was still constitutive of community life at Hellenistic Monte Iato, even under the umbrella of the Hellenistic polis. This life on the threshold between tradition and cosmopolitanism, between archaising cults and sophisticated architecture, between old-established authorities and modern forms of administration, between traditional and 'global' ways of consumption, is at the center of the research project. Epigraphic texts and material expressions, ranging from architectural structures to artefacts and biofacts (organic materials such as animal bones and botanical residues) will be analysed as local witnesses of the transformation of Monte Iato into a parochial city.
Scientific Abstract
Wider research context / theoretical framework:
Around 200 BC, Monte Iato was a Hellenistic polis, characterised by an agora, stoai, bouleuterion, theatre, and peristyle houses. At the same time, this hilltop settlement was also shaped by raditional features:
peristyle houses were built over the ruins of the scattered old nuclei of the archaic village and the Hellenistic roads still followed the old paths. Furthermore, one of the most significant sacred buildings, the Aphrodite Temple, retained its rustic archaic appearance until Roman times, although Peristyle House 1, situated in its immediate vicinity, represented a monumental manifesto of the then most modern architecture. At Monte Iato, traditional social structures interacted with the modern traits of a Hellenistic koine, giving the Hellenistic polis a distinct local look in comparison with the Hippodamian cities of Hellenistic Sicily.
Hypotheses/research questions /objectives:
How and why did this distinct, parochial appearance of Hellenistic Monte Iato come about? What was the local agenda, intertwined with the dynamics of the global power play that triggered and drove this historical process towards a parochial city? Preliminary research of the Hellenistic strata west of Peristyle House 1 points to archaising features that framed the city’s transformation into a Hellenistic polis in order to defuse the danger of de-localisation and to anchor the modern cityscape in the traditional and local social fabric. These parochial dimensions ‘beyond the world of Peristyle House 1’ are at the centre of the project.
Level of originality / innovation:
In contrast to previous research, the focus is not on the Hellenistic cityscape of ancient Iaitas, but on four study themes that characterise the transformation of the indigenous hilltop settlement into a parochial city:
1) From compounds to big houses – from households heads to clan leaders;
2) The re-building of the Aphrodite temple as a re-inauguration of the old communal cult;
3) Peristyle House 1 and the resurrection of the old political centre;
4) Consumptionscapes and regimes of value between traditionality and modernity.
Approach/methods:
Each of these study themes will be researched in its own self-contained domain and deals with a number of particular objectives and methodological problems that call for specific expert knowledge. The result is a pluri-disciplinary and multi-dimensional research design that attempts to combine artefactual and biofactual proxy data, sociology of architecture, consumption theories in material culture studies, and theorems of globalisation/localisation research.
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Principal Investigator: |
Prof. Erich Kistler |
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Address: |
ATRIUM - Zentrum für Alte Kulturen - Langer Weg 11 |
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University/Research Institution: |
Institut für Archäologien |
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Project collaborations: |
Dr. Birgit Öhlinger, Dr. Thomas Dauth and Jessika Armbrüster MA Arch. Dr. Stefano Zangara (Director of the ‘Parco Archeologico di Monte Iato’) Prof. Christoph Reusser & Dr. Martin Mohr (University of Zurich, Department of Archaeology, Ietas Excavation) Prof. Gerhard Forstenpointner (Department of Anatomy, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna) Prof. Ursula Thanheiser (VIAS – Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science, University of Vienna) Dr. Holger Baitinger (Romano-Germanic Central Museum, Research Institute of Archaeology) Dr. Gabriele Rasbach (Romano-Germanic Commission) |