Kamarina
Kamarina or Camerina was an ancient city in what is now the Ragusa Free Community Consortium on the south coast of Sicily , 16 km southwest of Vittoria .
location
The remains of the ancient city of Kamarina can be found in eastern Sicily on the southern coast, near the present-day town of Scoglitti . The city was built on three hills between the Hipparis and Oanis rivers.
history
According to Thucydides, Kamarina was born in 599 BC. Founded by residents of Syracuse . After a short time Kamarina separated from Syracuse and allied with Sikelern against the mother city. Then it was 553 BC. Destroyed by Syracuse. Hippocrates , a tyrant of Gela , rebuilt the city. Gelon destroyed the polis in 484 BC. BC again and settled its inhabitants in Syracuse. After the fall of the Deinomenids , the city was rebuilt from Gela. Since around 460 BC Kamarina enjoyed an era of prosperity and allied itself during the Peloponnesian War in 427 BC. BC as the only Doric city with Athens until the armed conflicts were stopped three years later. During the Athenian expedition to Sicily , Kamarina kept a distance from Athens and finally joined forces in 413 BC. BC Syracuse.
405 BC The territory of Kamarina was devastated by the Carthaginians . The residents temporarily left their city and moved to Syracuse and on to Leontinoi . After the peace between Dionysius I of Syracuse and Carthage, they were allowed to return home, but now had to pay tribute to the Punic . 339 BC Chr. Kamarina of Timoleon was strengthened by new colonists. When the tyrant Agathocles of Syracuse in 311 BC After it had been defeated, the city went over to the side of the Carthaginians. During the First Punic War in 255 BC. A Roman fleet was caught in a storm on the way back from an operation against the Carthaginians off the coast of Kamarina. Of the almost 400 galleys , almost 300 sank, around 100,000 Romans drowned, around 15 percent of the adult male population. In 258 BC The Romans finally destroyed Kamarina and enslaved its population.
The city was named after the water nymph Kamarina, who was revered as the mistress of the nearby lake fed by the Hipparis river. The image of the nymph riding on a swan can be seen on silver coins ( didrachms ) that were made in Kamarina in the last quarter of the 5th century BC. Were minted. The other side of these coins shows the head of a youth with bull horns, through whom the Hipparis river is embodied in a divine form.
The town
Kamarina was surrounded by a 7 km long city wall. The construction of the city is regular. There was a sanctuary dedicated to the goddess Athena .
Excavations and museum
Excavations began in the early 20th century and continued in 1958. These excavations uncovered a large part of the finds that are now exhibited in the Regional Archeology Museum of Kamarina.
The museum is housed in a Baglio , a traditional Italian winery that was built on the foundations of the Temple of Athena in the late 19th century . Parts of the temple walls were integrated into the eastern part of the manor. Previously they were part of the Madonna di Cammarana church , which was built in the Arab - Norman period and destroyed in a fire in 1837.
This eastern building, where the winemaker family used to live, houses the oldest finds from the region. There are fossils of mammals from the Ragusa area and items from the Early Bronze Age from settlements along the coast and from the village of Branco Grande . A second room in this building shows finds from the necropolis of Kamarina. The oldest of these finds from the early 6th century BC. The information from ancient sources shows that the settlement was in 598 BC. Was founded. In a third room there are female statuettes from the sanctuary of Persephone and fragments from the temple of Athena. The fourth room of the building shows parts of the original basement walls and foundations of the temple as well as a model of its original condition.
The western building once served as a barn for the animals. It contains finds from 500 BC. Until the abandonment of Kamarinas in the 1st century BC. Exhibited.
The former wine cellar of the estate is now used as an exhibition room for more than 1,000 ancient amphorae . These come from different countries on the Mediterranean, for example from Corinth , Attica , Laconia , Massalia , Chios , Etruria and Phenicia . Most of these amphorae were used to bury dead children in Greek times.
The entrance area of the museum in the former Palmento , the wine press , shows finds from shipwrecks in the Bay of Kamarina. Below is a Corinthian helmet and a silver bar from the 7th to 6th centuries BC. From the so-called Corinthian helmet shipwreck , lead weights from the 2nd century BC. Various glass and bronze vessels from the column shipwreck sunk in the 2nd century AD and more than six thousand coins from the Six Emperor shipwreck of the 3rd century AD. Furthermore, horseshoes and tools from a Tafurrea sunk in the Middle Ages , a ship that was used to transport horses.
literature
- Hans-Peter Drögemüller : Kamarina. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 3, Stuttgart 1969, column 96 f.
Web links
- Information about Kamarina (Italian)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thucydides 6: 5, 3
- ↑ Thucydides 6: 5, 3; Philistos , FGrH No. 556, F 5
- ↑ Herodotus , Histories 7, 154, 3; Thucydides 6, 5, 3; Philistos, FGrH No. 556, F15
- ↑ Herodotus, Historien 7, 156, 2; Thucydides 6, 5, 3; Philistos, FGrH No. 556, F15
- ↑ Thucydides 6: 5, 3; Diodorus 11, 76, 5
- ↑ Thucydides 3, 86, 2
- ↑ Thucydides 7, 33, 1 and 7, 58, 1; Diodorus 13, 12, 4
- ↑ Diodorus 13, 108, 3
- ↑ Diodorus 13, 114, 1
- ↑ Diodorus 16, 82, 7
- ↑ Diodorus 19, 110, 3
- ↑ Maritime Aderlass - The greatest military disaster of antiquity , Clausewitz - Magazine for Military History , 4/2019, p. 7
- ↑ Polybios 1, 24, 12; Diodor 23, 9, 4f .; Zonaras 8, 12
- ↑ a b c d e Museo Archeologico Regionale die Camarina , Camarina, 2012, published by the museum
Coordinates: 36 ° 52 ′ 19.6 " N , 14 ° 26 ′ 51.7" E