Instytut Archeologii

In 2016 and 2017, two field campaigns of architectural survey and archaeological excavation were conducted at the Greek fortress of Monte Turcisi in the province of Catania, Sicily. This military outpost of likely Syracusan dependence sits on top of a small mountain at the edge of the alluvial plain of Catania and offers an excellent overview of the wider area. The rather well-preserved remains of the fortification walls and outworks, as well as the interior structures of the Greek fort and a 17th-century hermitage, were documented and investigated during the two campaigns. In addition, five test trenches were excavated to collect basic information on the building techniques, chronology and stratigraphy of the fortress. The research conducted to this point suggests a construction date in the first half of the 4th century BC, possibly during the reign of Dionysius I. An artillery emplacement on the western slope was added at a later stage. The interior structures of the fortress seem to have been destroyed and rebuilt at least twice in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. After its abandonment in the 2nd century BC, the fort obviously was not reused for settlement before the 17th century AD.