Byzantine and Islamic Amphorae in Syracuse. New Light on Trade Networks and Identities in Early Medieval Mediterranean (8th–11th Century)

Giuseppe Cacciaguerra’s chapter introduces us to two types of identities: the first, relating to two religious and political communities – the Muslims and the Byzantines – who in the early Middle Ages went througha phase of open clashes; and the second, the identity of a “privileged” Sicilian city, Syracuse, which in that period was the centre of political and administrative power of Byzantine Sicily. Cacciaguerra underlines an element that is very important to us not only for the history of Sicily but also for the interesting parallels with the chapter on Sardinia and its relationship with the Islamic world of that period, which was written by us. We are talking of the role played by a historiographic tradition of the 19th century which interpreted Syracuse and Sicily as marginal and peripheral lands in the early medieval Mediterranean. Moving away from this historiographic approach, which raises more perplexities, the author emphasises that the archaeological finds show how the city and Sicily continued to maintain a dense network of commercial and also political- institutional relations with the Byzantine world until at least the 8th century, despite the numerous Muslim attacks they suffered. A further and even more significant change in identity and structure of the city and the island, took place after the mid- 10th century towards a complete Islamisation of the material culture and the “integration into a southern economic area with Ifriquia and Egypt as the main poles”, which downgraded the city’s importance at regional level.