Due “Capitali”, due storie? Siracusa e Palermo: Storia e cultura materiale tra IX e XI secolo

The contribution addresses the topic of the historical development of Sicilian material culture, in particular pottery, between late Byzantine and Islamic times through the analysis and comparison of urban archaeological contexts of Palermo and Syracuse in order to underline the process of Islamization, the role of the Byzantine heritage, the influence of the different ethnic groups and the role of the societies and economies of the Mediterranean between the 9th and the 11th centuries. In particular, the times and outcomes of the transformations in ceramic production are analyzed, observing similarities and differences between the two cities. The results made it possible to observe that in the Late Byzantine Age (Late 8th-Second/Third Quarter of the 9th century) the scarce data available seems to indicate an analogy in consumption, while between the end of the 9th and the first half of the 10th century, the period of stronger differentiation between the two cities, Islamization is still in progress, especially for eastern Sicily. From the mid-10th century, on the other hand, the ceramic assemblage of the two cities was largely uniform, with the exception of the cooking ware for which a strong differentiation is evident, despite the homogeneity of preceding period.