Agora Valley Project -- Report on the Results of the 2023 Campaign of the American Excavations at Morgantina

D. Alex Walthall

The 2023 campaign of the American Excavations at Morgantina: Agora Valley Project was a major success, thanks in no small part to the generous support of International Catacomb Society and the Shohet Fellowship program.

Project Summary

Over the course of five weeks in summer 2023, more than 40 students and scholars from colleges and universities across North American and Europe participated in the excavations of a large temenos-like structure in the lower agora (civic center) of Morgantina, an ancient urban settlement located in central-eastern Sicily (Fig 1).

Our work was guided by an abiding interest in achieving a better understanding of the social, economic, and religious transformations that occurred in the city during the first 250 years of Roman rule on Sicily. The focus of our excavations and research in 2023, the so-called Southwest Temenos, may be one of only a small number of new public building constructed in the city after the Second Punic War (Fig 2).

Portions of the Temenos were first excavated in the 1960s, revealing the remains of a large peribolos wall, several rooms, and two large water basins, as well as fragments belonging to a number of different limestone and marble sculptures.

Description of 2023 Progress & Discovery

In 2023, we opened three new trenches inside the peribolos wall with the goal of gaining a clearer picture of the architecture and spatial organization of the temenos, as well as a better sense of the stratigraphy of the area (Fig 3).

Our work revealed two additional rooms in what we are calling the Temenos’ South Complex, which appears to combine a roofed three-room suite (possibly for banqueting?) with two large, openair spaces. Further excavations planned for upcoming seasons at Morgantina will hopefully shed light on the use and function of these rooms. To the north of the South Complex, our excavations revealed the full dimensions of a structure that we are referring to as Building A, the westernmost portions of which were first discovered in 1962. We remain very circumspect in attributing a function to Building A, given that only very limited excavations were completed in and around the structure in 2023. Nevertheless, it does certainly resemble a naiskos (small temple) in its architectural form and orientation (Fig 4).

The AVP team does plan further investigations inside and around this building in 2024 with the goal of obtaining a better sense of its use and chronological development. Among the most eye-catching finds from the 2023 excavations, our team recovered part of a limestone statuette inside one of the rooms of the South Complex. Although damaged, the small sculpture clearly depicts a young boy holding a bird against his chest with his left hand (Fig 5).

This is the first such statuette to be found at Morgantina, but sculptures of this type—depicting nude male youths holding birds or other objects—are well attested at sanctuary sites throughout the eastern Mediterranean and may surely be identified as votive offerings. The Morgantina statuette was found in a context associated with the accumulation of debris inside the Temenos following its abandonment, so we cannot yet securely associate the sculpture with the Temenos during the period that it was in use. Nonetheless, the presence of the statuette within the walls of the Temenos suggest that it was likely dedicated somewhere in the vicinity.

Future Plans

In summer 2024, the AVP team plans to return to the Southwest Temenos to further expand our investigations within the structure, hoping to gather additional evidence that can speak to the chronology and use of this still enigmatic space.