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Argimusco: Cartography, Archaeology and Astronomy

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The Light, The Stones and The Sacred

Part of the book series: Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings ((ASSSP,volume 48))

Abstract

Argimusco is a district in the neighborhood of the medieval city of Montalbano Elicona, in northern Sicily. It is a plateau, a suggestive naturalistic area that is near to many interesting archaeological sites, like Rocca San Marco and Sperlinga, whose origins date back respectively to the Paleolithic and Mesolithic Age (Brea in La Sicilia prima dei Greci, Il Saggiatore, Milano, 1958; Cavalier Il riparo della Sperlinga di S. Basilio (Novara di Sicilia), in Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana, Roma, pp. 7–76, 1971). The Argimusco’s plateau has natural rock formations featuring anthropomorphic and zoomorphic forms. It is assumed that the entire area had been used since the prehistoric times as a place of worship and ritual use, and, according to some sicilian scholars, it could be a sort of natural sanctuary (Pantano in Megaliti di Sicilia, Edizioni Fotocolor, Patti, 1994; Todaro in Alla ricerca di Abaceno, Armando Siciliano Editore, Messina, 1992). Unfortunately, official archaeological excavations were never made on the Argimusco’s plateau, but, from several surveys, lithic and pottery fragments have emerged ranging from the prehistoric age to the late medieval period. Argimusco appears to be a good site for the observation of the sky and of celestial phenomena (Orlando Archaeoastronomy in Sicily: Megaliths and Rocky Sites, in The Materiality of the Sky, Sophia Centre Press, 2016). In this paper I present the results of a 6 years of study of this area, and I propose a possible calendar based on the eastern horizon profile characteristics with Rocca Novara that acts as an equinox indicator.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Age of these outcrop are: (a) COD (Chattiano-Lower Burdigalian, 23–20.4 Ma); (b) CFL (Upper Burdigalian-Langhian, 16–13.8 Ma); (c) ASI (Upper Cretaceous, 99.6–65.5 Ma).

  2. 2.

    The Argimusco is situated along the SP115, called Tripiciana, to the junction that leads to Malabotta’s Wood. Near this road junction there is the ruin of the so-called Fondaco Tower, which has a room with a barrel vault on the ground floor.

  3. 3.

    This Rock is also known as the Matterhorn of Sicily and it is a Site of Community Importance (SCI). From geological point of view the Rocca Novara is characterized by its peculiar tectonic units (NOV, Cretaceous-Eocene age).

  4. 4.

    Bartolomeo di Neocastro, Idrisi and Malaterra ensure the historical significance of the route, which goes from Randazzo leading to Messina and vice versa, in the Middle Ages; it is likely that the Nebrodi pass, near Montalbano and Argimusco, was already well known in ancient times, as is shown by an important literary passage from Diodorus of Sicily in relation to arms campaigns of Hiero II, which, in 271 BC, come to Tindari going up the river Flascio from Maniace and passes through Abaceno (Tripi) (Diodorus 22, 13, 2). These road links to the mid-twelfth century are recorded as early as Idrisi, which registers between Randazzo and Montalbano a distance of about 20 miles (Idrisi 2008), and, indirectly, in 1061 AD by Geoffrey Malaterra in connection with the Nebrodi crossing wanted by Robert Guiscard and Count Roger, who  <<… audaciores sub Scalatripoli (today Tripi) hospitium sumunt. Inde in crastinum to Fraxinos perveniunt, et a Fraxinis to Maniaci pratum…>> (Malaterra 2000), so along the road from Tripi to Montalbano and passing to Argimusco towards Randazzo to finally arrive in Maniace.

  5. 5.

    Maurolico, F., Descrizione dell'Isola di Sicilia, Venezia, 1546; Fazello, T., De Rebus Siculis decades duae, Palermo, 1558. For the purpose of the study it is interesting to note that in kit of the Maurolico’s opera there was also a map of the island, engraved in wood and printed the year before by the same printer in Venice and included by Giacomo Gastaldi in his famous cartographic collection dedicated to Italy; the design of this map is attributed by some to the same Maurolico (Samperi 1644). The Gastaldi map of Sicily is a real milestone in the history of the Sicilian cartography, as for the first time, following evidently to thorough critical review of the Ptolemaic paper, occur the merger between empirical and scholarly geography, and provides the main island's toponyms, both coastal and interior. This map will inspire the later works of Mercator and Ortelius.

  6. 6.

    This map is now kept and exhibited at the National Library of France.

  7. 7.

    I have identified 38 geographical maps of Sicily with toponym refers to the plateau, including those of (to view all the maps see the work of Dufour and La Gumina 1998), Quad von Kinckelbach (1600), Metellus (1601), Merian (1635), Mercator (1630), Jansson (1640), Blaeu (1640), Duval (1672), Collignon (1676), Wit (1680), Jaillot (1681), Bulifon (1692), Funcke (1693), Coronelli (1696) and Visscher (1698).

  8. 8.

    Pantano G., Argimusco, la verità sulll’origine del nome, Centonove, Messina 2015.

  9. 9.

    Same observation can be done to another map, fundamental to the history of Sicily, the Carte comparée de la Sicile du XIIe siècle, drafted in 1859 by A.H. Dufour and M. Amari (Bibliotheque Nationale de France, GEC-2369) on the basis of the Book of Roger written by Al-Idrisi in the eleventh century. Although the Arab geographer did not mention the Argimusco, the map of the Dufour-Amari, similar to that of Smith, put the place in an important crossroads leading: to the North-West towards Montalbano, West to Floresta, South to Roccella, North-East towards Novara of Sicily and East to Pizzo Bonavi. It is to note the disappearance of the water source ‘Lagrimusco’ from the nineteenth-century cartography, evidently counted within the Argimusco district.

  10. 10.

    The rocky millstones are generally formed from two adjacent tubs, different in shape and size. The largest is located at the top of the stone. A hole dug into the rock connects the two tubs. In the upper tub was crushed grapes. After crushing the grape must was collected in lower tub.

  11. 11.

    On the topic of wine production in antiquity there are numerous works; for example, as regards the western Sicily, I want to remember: Costantini L., Semi e carboni del Mesolitico e Neolitico della Grotta dell’Uzzo, Quaternaria, vol. 23, 1982; while as it regards the eastern Sicily: Amato F., Prospettive di ricerca sulla produzione vitivinicola antica a Licata (Agrigento), 2012.

  12. 12.

    For this purpose I am working to activate the Argimusco Project, forming an international group of research that in 2018 should start the multidisciplinary study on the plateau.

  13. 13.

    Prof. Giuseppe Todaro has sadly passed away in January 2017.

  14. 14.

    To watch some official videos of the festivals I propose a selection from the web, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AGUJioKw8A&t=4s (‘Pietre&Stelle2014’); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHX6FBlXdRo (‘Alla Ricerca dell’Astronomia Perduta 2015’); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JpBkOqt-a8&t=6s (‘Alla Ricerca dell’Astronomia Perduta 2016’); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26YJXO62Ct0 (‘Pietre&Stelle2016’).

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Acknowledgements

I thank very much some members of the Istituto di Archeoastronomia Siciliana (IAS), and in particular: Dr. Davide Gori, vice president of the IAS, for the geological contribution, and Dr. Alessandra Alberici for her extraordinary presence in the research activity on the abacenino-tindaritano territory. And finally I thank Prof. Gaetano Pantano, Prof. Giuseppe Todaro, Dr. Sergi Grau Torres and Dr. Gino Sofia, director of the Archaeological Museum ‘S. Furnari’ of Tripi (ME), for their collaboration and friendship.

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  1. Catania Astrophysical Observatory (INAF), Catania, Italy

    Andrea Orlando

  2. National South Laboratories (INFN), Catania, Italy

    Andrea Orlando

  3. Institute of Sicilian Archaeoastronomy, Novara di Sicilia, Italy

    Andrea Orlando

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    Andrea Orlando

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Orlando, A. (2017). Argimusco: Cartography, Archaeology and Astronomy. In: Orlando, A. (eds) The Light, The Stones and The Sacred. Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings, vol 48. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54487-8_8

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