La classe delle coppe ‘a clipeo’ nella ceramica indigena della Sicilia centro-occidentale nell’età del Ferro: una foggia di origine egeo-cretese?

The “Shield-cup” Class of the Indigenous Pottery in Iron Age Centralwestern Sicily: Is it a Shape of Aegean-Cretan Origin? · This paper aims at investigating a specific typological class of the indigenous pottery production of Iron Age Sicily. The variety of shallow cup, without handles and carined profile, named as “shield-cup” is still scarcely examined in terms of chronology, diffusion and origin of type. This study contributes to reconstruct a new map of distribution which includes mostly the regions of Central-Western Sicily, the area named as “Sikanie” according the Greek historical sources. New elements of relative chronology comes from the main archaeological deposits where this pottery category is attested. Finally, a wider analysis of the possible connections, in terms of typological and decorative aspects, with a wheel-made painted production of Shield-Like Lids attested in the Middle and Late Geometric Period at Crete, suggests an origin from this area. Such Southern Aegean pottery category would have reach Sicily during the foundation of Gela by Rhodians and Cretans in early 7th century BC.