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<< Our Photo Pages >> Cava dei Servi - Burial Chamber or Dolmen in Italy in Sicily (Sicilia)

Submitted by Salvatore on Sunday, 05 December 2010  Page Views: 7567

Neolithic and Bronze AgeSite Name: Cava dei Servi Alternative Name:
Country: Italy Region: Sicily (Sicilia) Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen
Nearest Town: Ragusa  Nearest Village: Frigintini
Latitude: 36.921630N  Longitude: 14.825020E
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
no data Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
no data Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
3
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Cava dei Servi
Cava dei Servi submitted by Salvatore : Cava dei Servi dolmen (Sicily) (Vote or comment on this photo)
Burial Chamber (Dolmen) in Sicily (Sicilia) The River Tellesimo finds its source in the Iblean Plateau; its confluence with the River Tellaro is a few kilometres downstream. The Tellaro, by now swollen due to a number of other forks, flows into the Ionian Sea, south of Lido di Noto. There where the Tellesimo has its source, a tortuous path winding along through the jagged coastal range leads us to one of the many quarries called Cava dei Servi.

The place, some kilometres south of the hamlet of San Giacomo, opens onto a Nature Reserve which contains the most exceptional (an understatement) prehistoric finds. The geological conformation of this area is rather varied, comprising an alternation of biocalcarenite (Lecce stone) cemented to grey-white macro-foraminiferous rock, in irregular banks from 50cms to 2–3ms in thickness, and cream-white marnous calcarenite (limestone) which are thinly consolidated. They form the Irminio Member of the Ragusa formation; the upper member, the structure being in two parts, is divided (the lower part, the Leonardo Member, does not come to the surface in the area).

The clayey marnous terrain, highly erosive, is modelled into gently undulating sub-surface flatland giving origin to low hills which formed between the Upper Oligocene Age and the Lower Miocene Age (between twenty-six and twenty million years ago).

The erosive action of water determined very steep and deep ravines that characterise most of the territory around Ragusa and Syracuse, so giving a reason for the existence of inaccessible and aspen caves which have from time unknown given refuge to groups of humans.

In Cava dei Servi, the depression that has been formed by the torrents has made it impossible to reach a small headland, where a prehistoric acropolis probably once stood. The promontory is surrounded by steep rock faces that were connected to the mountain by a narrow and well-defined passage.

The hump was the site of human settlements from the early Bronze Age to the Pantalica 1 period (around 1250–1000 B.C.) [Ref 9]; the era to which the innumerable small artificial grotto sepulchres that are hollowed out in the side of the rock faces belong [10]. There are, moreover, documented enchytrismós burials (inside large urns) and ceramic objects which will have made up the funeral dowry of the dead [11]. This area, which is not far from the Mount Lauro embankment, gave rise to interest as far back as the Copper Age because, as in the Iblean region, it guaranteed excellent commercial opportunities thanks to the quarrying of flint. Flint was easy to transport downhill along the waterways of the Tellaro and Anapo Rivers [12].

A medium-sized slab construction dominates a landscape that cannot but arouse mystic sensations. It is to be found on top of an overhanging rock, along one of the less tortuous paths of the quarry, few metres higher than the only track that leads to the gorge. The semi-oval monument is formed by four rectangular slabs fixed into the ground. Another three slabs are on top, leaning in such a way they reduce the surface and form a false dome. Two large parallelepiped boulders complete the construction.

The four upright stones that determine the curve are more or less uniform in measurement, which proves building abilities aimed at creating corresponding bonding of each construction element of the manufactured product. Hence, stability is guaranteed. The three inclining slabs that were placed on top, instead, have more irregular dimensions as, not having any stability function, precision would have been superfluous.

Inside the chamber there is a large chalky slab that has been fractured in four places. It would seem it was the vault stone of the monument and that it crashed to the ground due to progressive sliding of the structure. Along with some findings underneath, which we shall discuss further on, its dimensions seem to consolidate the coffer theory. All the pieces on the ground, in fact, would have been part of a large monolith, squared in front to fit the closure hatch. The blocks to the side served as jams, reinforcing a part that was rather under pressure because of frequent opening. The lay-out of the stones gave shape to a construction of about 3.00 sq ms that had been set into the slope of the hill to make burial easier.

A lucky chance, to say the least, led me to determine the function and chronology of this unique piece of work; thanks to numerous human bone fragments [13] (the only organic clues so far found inside a Mediterranean dolmen) and to some splinters of Castelluccian (Early Bronze Age) ceramics [14]. The anthropological remains have confirmed the burial purpose of the artefact, while the, though few, earthenware fragments have legitimised dating them back to the early Bronze Age.

The positioning around a rocky cemetery confirms the belief that we are not dealing with an attempt to better a particularly demanding and dangerous architectural structure, like the small artificial grotto [15], but we are faced with absolutely unique elaborations.
The location, therefore, will have also had a dolmen necropolis. This is not such a farfetched hypothesis if you listen to the tales of some of the workers of the area: some years before my reconnaissance exploration, a large number of those tombs, complete with skeletons and funeral dowries, were wrecked and dispersed by the violent action of bulldozers employed for the construction of a road alongside the Nature Reserve. Irreparable damage was done. It will have deprived us of very much data together with making things difficult for us to compare specimens with some existing dolmens in the Iberian peninsular, in Sardinia and in Apulia that had been built in the same way.

Structures that have been found in nearby Malta also lead us to suppose a common origin of the phenomenon. The mystery that hangs over the Sicilian dolmen builders could be revealed right here. The advanced Tarxien Civilisation [16] of the little archipelago in the south of Sicily suddenly disappeared around four thousand five hundred years ago. Themistocles Zammit, a Maltese archaeologist of the early 1900s, hypothesizes the exceptional event was perhaps, indeed probably, due to a devastating plague that wiped out the inhabitants of the small islands: another ethnic group arrived there many centuries later. The traces of the new population, however, came to light immediately after the first. These traces were first come across in the Tarxien “cremation cemetery”, hence the name Cemetery Culture of Tarxien.

There must have been a good and proper invasion therefore, perpetrated by people who at first were thought to have come from the Aeolian Islands, due to the resemblance of their pottery with that of Capo Graziano [17]. However, we do not find the more elaborate vase shapes of the Tarxien Cemetery in Lipari and, moreover, the decorations are different [18]. This would exclude the invaders being from there.
The finding of some Tarxien Cemetery style pottery inside two Maltese dolmens (an architectural design foreign to the Aeolians), was part of putting an end to the doubt, once and for all, that the people came from the Aeolian Islands. Hence, the small megaliths of Malta and Gozo are attributed to the people of the Tarxien Cemetery [19]. The fact that these monuments were used as tombs though remains but a guess, perhaps becoming a certainty after the discoveries of the Cava dei Servi dolmen, the shape of which, moreover, brings to mind similar structures present in a vast area of the Mediterranean.

Technical data sheet of the monument

height of lower slab (1st on right): 0.89ms
width of lower slab (1st on right): 0.89ms
thickness of lower slab (1st on right): 0.22ms
height of lower slab (2nd on right): 0.99ms
width of lower slab (2nd on right): 0.61ms
thickness of lower slab (2nd on right): 0.28ms
height of lower slab (3rd on right): 0.88ms
width of lower slab (3rd on right): 1.08ms
thickness of lower slab (3rd on right): 0.20ms
height of lower slab (4th on right): 0.93ms
width of lower slab (4th on right): 0.88ms
thickness of lower slab (4th on right): 0.18ms
length of upper slab (1st on right): 0.85ms
width of upper slab (1st on right): 0.69ms
thickness of upper slab (1st on right): 0.20ms
length of upper slab (2nd on right): 0.46ms
width of upper slab (2nd on right): 0.43ms
thickness of upper slab (2nd on right): 0.19ms
length of upper slab (3rd on right): 0.63ms
width of upper slab (3rd on right): 1.15ms
thickness of upper slab (3rd on right): 0.20ms
height of front right block 1.17ms
width of front right block 0.77ms
thickness of front right block 0.62ms
height of front left block 0.80ms
width of front left block 0.60ms
thickness of front left block 0.80ms
orientation (opening) 65° NE

Geographical map reference I.G.M. 1/25.000 – F° 276 I NE

References:
9 M. Del Campo/G. Scrofani, Insediamenti preistorici nella Cava dei Servi, in «Un quinquennio di attività archeologica nella provincia di Siracusa», 1971, pp.20-21.
10 G. Di Stefano, Piccola guida delle stazioni preistoriche degli Iblei, op. cit. pp.85 on.
11 G. Di Stefano, Cava dei Servi, in Studi Etruschi, vol. XLVI (III series), p. 577.
12 L. Guzzardi, Civiltà indigene e città greche nella regione iblea, op. cit., p. 17.
13 The bone remains belonged to two individuals, one adult and the other still a youngster. Owing to the unusual thickness, the cranial fragments have diagnostically resulted in showing the adult suffered a clinical pathology that is fairly common in our area; thalassaemia (Mediterranean anaemia).
14 The Culture of Castelluccio (from the name of the site situated some twenty kilometres from Noto), goes back to the first phase of the Bronze Age (Early Bronze Age). It would seem the population of Castelluccio came from central Anatolia, because of the evident similarities between Sicilian pottery of this Sicilian cultural facies and its contemporary in the Middle-East, called «Cappadocia»; cf. L. Bernabò Brea, La Sicilia prima dei Greci, op. cit., pp.109-110.
15 Cf. G. Di Stefano, La collezione preistorica della “Grotta Lazzaro” nel museo civico di Modica, op. cit., p. 108; cf. also P. Orsi, Miniere di selce e sepolcri eneolitici a Monte Tabuto e …, op. cit., p. 203.
16 Locality in the east of Malta, dug out from the Zammit between 1915 and 1917. We are dealing with a complex of four temples that cover an area of 5,300sq. ms., inside of which the lower half of a gigantic statue representing the local divinity was found. The Bronze Age invaders used the ruins of the previous temples as a cremation necropolis. Other minor temple complexes are to be found in Hagiar Kim, Mnaidra, Mgiarr, Sorba on the main island, and Gigantija in Gozo.
17 A village situated on the headland of the same name on Filicudi, an Aeolian island, from which a Culture of the Early Bronze Age takes its name. A rather coarse type of pottery characterises it. The ceramics are decorated with interspersed linear incisions, sometimes from patterns, either geometrical or floral, which are got from pressing the artefact while still humid.
18 Cf. J. D. Evans, Segreti dell’Antica Malta, op. cit. p. 177 on.
19 Cf. J. D. Evans, ibidem.

This article continues with a look at the Cava Lazzaro Dolmen.

Information from Salvatore Piccolo's book,
"Antiche Pietre. La cultura dei dolmen nella preistoria della Sicilia sud-orientale",
Morrone editore, Siracusa 2007.

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 8.4km SE 128° Cava Lazzaro* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
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