Between the Aphrodite-Temple and the Late Archaic House II

Point of departure: Since the early Iron Age the cult site at the Aphrodite Temple on Monte Iato was a central arena for formation of alliances as well as for redistributing resources and prestigious goods. Over the centuries this indigenous central place was subjected to altering figurations of the colonial situation in western Sicily. At a first step, contacts with Phoenicians constituted in the 7th century B.C. the creation of a cult site as central hub in a ritualised exchange system among indigenous leaders. At a second stage, as a result of close contacts with the Greeks around 550 B.C., the ceremonial center was overbuilt by a megaron-like structure, consecrated to Aphrodite. Additional smaller sacred buildings were later added, accompanied by the steadily increasing flow of colonial imports. Finally, this colonial process culminated in the Late Archaic House, whose banqueting rooms on the upper storey anticipates around 500 B.C. the classical andrones with their platforms for klinai and plastered walls. Given this high degree of Hellenisation, the increasing tendency to cling onto an imagined pre-colonial era of the ancestors is all the more surprising. Around 460 B.C. probably as a consequence of incisive shifts in power in the apoikiai of colonial partners there was a general collapse and return to a Life according to the old order which left behind very few archaeological traces well into the early 3rd century. Innovative aspect: Using the concept of coloniality, the phases of dominance of colonial power matrices will be grasped as the empowerment of local power structures by indigenous people aspiring for power through colonial partners. Coloniality therefore has a dual function and is moreover contrasted with the locality. This not only refers to locality lived and experienced on a daily basis but rather to a sense of belonging that is relived through the ritualised re-enactment of an ancient world from pre-colonial times. Approach/Methodology: In the previous project (2010-2013) the phase of colonial peak around 500 B.C. and the local reactions to it were reflected along the lines of thick description. The proposed successor project (2014-2017) aims at researching the period prior to this. The objective therefore is to trace the different consumptionscapes of coloniality and locality in the older archaic strata using a finely tuned archaeometry. In a concluding individual project (2018-2022) the same shall be undertaken for post-archaic layers from the Classical to Roman periods. Objective/Hypothesis: The proposed project and the planned long-term project aim to develop and test a new perspective that helps us to consider colonisation in terms of indigenous/local empowerment which, in conflict with the de-empowering return to local authenticity, is expressed archaeologically as a dialectic process between Aphrodite Temple and Late Archaic House.

During the last 30 years the paradigm of the Greeks as civiliser and Masters of Colonisation has been increasingly undermined in its historic validity. As a consequence, concepts of postcolonialism and theories of globalisation are favoured today. With their help the so-called Greek colonisation shall be examined not as a unidirectional concept, but as a complex historical process. For this purpose Monte Iato in the mountainous interior of Western Sicily and especially the area between the Aphrodite Temple and the Late Archaic House, with its continuous stratigraphy from the late 8th to the mid-5th centuries offers an ideal point of departure. Thus, significant contemporaneous findings illustrating the colonial situation on the hilltop can be understood as materialisations of individual stages within a long-term process and can therefore be located as such on a vertical axis of time. In so doing, the effects this colonial process had by this colonial process on the local community on Monte Iato become analysable in their historic succession and conclusiveness, and just as uniformly from an inland perspective of the locals. This hypothesis or question was pursued by the project Between Late-Archaic House and Aphrodite-Temple II through targeted archaeological fieldwork on Monte Iato, ca. 30 km south of Palermo, using natural scientific methods as well. What was brought to light is a pre-global microcosm that compares favourably to the modern world considering its dynamics and complexity. After more than 100 years of loose contact with the trans-Mediterranean coastal network, single families on Monte Iato began to pursue deliberate policies of guest friendship and networking with the tyrants and aristocrats of the Greek coastal cities from 550 onwards. Along these connecting lines of guest friendship goods, technologies, and craftsmen arrived on the hill as well. By their power to decide who of the local co-inhabitants was allowed to participate or not, these families consolidated their claim to leadership more and more. Already around 500 this process of appropriation and empowerment culminated in monumental high-tech architecture and a seemingly Greek style of consumer culture that was hardly distinguishable from the life of the Greeks in their mundane coastal cities. To prevent the social dislocation from their local milieu the return to imaginary age-old cults and rituals was nonetheless forced at the same time. Apparently such a religious reference to a local authenticity and identity was needed to make this new globalised lifeworld - as the manifest of a new order and leadership - socially and politically tolerable within the indigenous societal framework.