The Late Antique and Early Byzantine periods are crucial ones for the understanding of Sicily's socio-economic and cultural evolution from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Recent research has shown that the island still played its centuries-old role then as a Mediterranean linchpin, and this realization has awakened scholars’ interest for a period that has been dogged by an adverse historical bias (one of perceived ‘decline and decadence’) for a long time. A raft of new data from archaeological excavations and field surveys have sketched the outlines of the nuanced complexities of Sicilian society and its vibrant economy at this period, and its integration into multiple Mediterranean trade routes. Despite some progress overall, delay in the publication of old excavations, the paucity of syntheses available, and the difficulty in finding, accessing and reusing existing datasets, are a hindrance to resolving some key problems about this important transitional phase in Sicilian history.
The FIRS project therefore focuses on five key sites in western Sicily, investigated during the second half of the 20th century but largely unpublished. These comprise the rural settlements of Campanaio and Castagna, the villa maritima at Durrueli and the port cities of Palermo and Lilybaeum (Marsala). By analysing the quantity of material culture from the excavations and exploring the distribution of artefacts at a micro-regional scale, the project aims to investigate the many and various causes that triggered changes in trading patterns, social behaviour, and cultural practices between the 5th and the 7th centuries AD. At the same time, it aims to develop a sound strategy for digitization, archiving, and management of archaeological data.
With the support of a multidisciplinary team’s expertise, we pursue three Research Objectives connected to specific issues that we intend to investigate:
1. Analysing the material culture, notably ceramic, from Sicilian late housing contexts to acquire new information about people’s attitudes, tastes, consumption habits, diet, and productive capacity.
2. Building a modern ontology that integrates both new and long-known data to ensure proper storage, firm verifiability, efficient exploitation, and rapid information sharing.
3. Exploring intra and infra-site artifacts distribution in order to shed new light on the causes triggering change or resilience in trade patterns, social behaviour, and cultural practices at different levels and degrees.
The FIRS project is a collaboration between the Department of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies at the University of British Columbia and the Centre Camille Jullian at Aix-Marseille University, both actively engaged in archaeological missions in Sicily. The expected results will impact the international scientific community through a fast co-edition of the contexts above, a new broad theoretical basis, and the first Sicilian digital Atlas of the Late Antique and Early Byzantine periods. These results will also have a positive impact on the general public and local economies by promoting awareness of important but often neglected aspects of Sicilian cultural heritage.
