Will keep exceptional finds. Who speak of our ancient land. An important first step was taken for the realization in Novara di Sicilia, the splendid center of the Peloritani with a great story behind the manos, The Archaeological Civic Museumwhich will keep “pieces” recently reported in a new headquarters for the final set -up. Which will be the definitive and very important testimony of what happened in prehistory in that geographical area and in Sicily.
The finds that will be exhibited after so much oblivion come from the shelter of the Sperlinga di San Basilio, who – explains the curator of the Manos, the Novarese archaeologist Gino Sofia -, represents in the panorama of Sicilian prehistory a provisional hunting allocation, whose older life stages date back to 12,000 years ago, a period attributable to mesolithic. And it is a crucial moment of epochal passage. In fact, in Mesolithic we move from the geological era of the Pleistocene, a period of great and intense glaciation, to the new era of olocene, in which we still find ourselves today, characterized by milder climates and hot faunas. The Sperlinga, seamlessly, was inhabited in the Neolithic and until the late age of copper (2,100 BC).
It attest – continues Sofia -, the archaeological material, found in the stratigraphy of shelter: ceramic representative of various cultural horizons and abundant lithic industry on flint and obsidian. The Neolithic, in turn, represents a moment of passage in the social relationships and food habits of the Sapiens Sapiens. In fact, we pass from nomadic community of gathering hunters to more structured and permanent companies, dedicated to breeding and agriculture.
The shelter of San Basilio investigated by the famous archaeologist Luigi Bernabò Brea During a very short excavation campaign in May 1952, he shows all his landscape beauty and his sumptuous role as a multi -cultural and multi -artist site among the few in Europe. The archaeological finds will thus rise to true witnesses of these epochal passages, supporting with their historicity the undisputed value of a site and a place of culture.
“A great satisfaction – declares the mayor of Novara di Sicilia, Gino Bertolami -, pervades me the soul and the heart for having brought, after 73 years, the finds in their” Natii places “. The museum that hosts them, in its archaeological exposure, does not represent only a place of custodian culture of these testimonies, but also wants to absence the center of study and reference for the panorama attributable to national and international prehistory. The exposure expertly set up – continues the mayor Bertolami -, in the rooms of the main floor of Palazzo Salvo Rianto, by the Archaeological Park of the Islands (director the architect Vilardo, and by Dr. Martinelli), in synergy with the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage of Messina, with the archaeologist Nunzia Ollà, and with the archaeologist Gino Sofia as a scientific curator, will thus be to the public. The final phase of the arrangement of the finds inside the windows is now missing and then, finally, to proceed with the inauguration. Which presumably will be organized for the summer “.