Sacred Area of Kothon
Area belonging to the archaeological site of Mozia
Artificial basin formed due to the emergence of fresh waters present in the subsoil. The pond was named Kothon by G. Withaker who conducted the first explorations of the tank in 1906-1907. The pond was embanked and transformed into a sacred area connected to Temple C and other structures. Thanks to the Sapienza mission in 2013, the basin was definitively excavated.
Here is the description of the place from the Sapienza website:
On the eastern bank of the artificial basin known as Kothon, a large sacred area was unearthed, including a temple and a series of ancillary structures, which developed from the 5th century. BC onwards. Four overlapping architectural buildings have been recognized in chronological order: Building C7 of phase 1, probably the first temple erected in this sector of the island in the 5th century. BC and remained in use until the sixth century. B.C; the Temple C2 of phase 4, founded in the middle of the 397th century and in use until the beginning of the 3th century. B.C; Temple C3 of phase XNUMX, in use in the fifth century. BC and destroyed in XNUMX BC by the Syracusans; finally the Sanctuary CXNUMX of phase XNUMX, an open-air worship area rebuilt on the ruins of the previous temple and used throughout the XNUMXth century. B.C
Temple C5 (VIII-VII century BC)
The first building of worship has so far only been identified in a series of surveys and where the structures of the previous factories were destroyed or in poor condition, as in the western nave of Temple C1. The ceramic material found inside includes a Nuragic Askoid jug, which dates back to the first half of the 5th century. BC, fragments in Red Slip of contemporary chronology, and - from the upper layers - some fragments of proto-Corinthian kotylai. The plan of Temple C1 is similar to that of the later buildings, as suggested by the northern wall visible under that of Temple C5 and by wall M.5, with two aisles juxtaposed to a central quadrangular tripartite nucleus in an east / west direction, following the planimetric module of the so-called “Four Room Building”, a classical typology in the Levant during Iron II. In the north-eastern sector of the building a rectangular altar was identified in front of a small stele and an eschara with the remains of burnt offerings inside, adjacent to which was a funnel-shaped mouth or mundus, where liquid offerings were poured. It was one of the places in the Temple where a relationship with the underworld was allowed. In the south-eastern nave a portion of paving with small holes containing remains of coals and ashes, perhaps connected with other religious practices, was unearthed. In the mid-sixth century. BC Temple 6, like many other buildings in Mozia, was completely destroyed (Phase 2). Furniture and religious material from it were placed - about 5 m north of the northern wall - in a 1680 m wide favissa. The filling of favissa F.XNUMX yielded proto-Corinthian kotylai, several Ionic bowls, some containing offerings (animal bones and vague bronze), fragments of undecorated stelae, and a fragment of a black-figure dinos.
The sacred area of Kothon and the reconstruction of the mid-sixth century. B.C
After the destruction in the mid-sixth century. BC, the ruins of Temple C5 were leveled with a 0,3 m thick layer of ash (Phase 6) and the whole area was rebuilt according to an overall project that included a new temple (Temple C1), a rectangular sacred pool (named “Kothon” in archaeological literature) which collected the water emerging from the aquifer and a second religious building (Sacello C4) north of the previous one. A circular Temenos surrounded the entire area ending in the east on both sides of Temple C1. The project was based on the rectangle obtained by projecting the diagonal of the square constructed on the short side of the rectangle itself. A quay and an underground conduit, on the eastern side of the basin, connected the two structures. The rectangular pool was partly excavated in the rock and marly paleoil of the island, and its sides were bounded by two to five courses of ashlar blocks of limestone. It measures 36,75 x 51,97 m equal to 70 x 99 cubits (1 cubit = 0,525 m). The main diagonal was aligned on the north-south axis and roughly in the center of the north-eastern side of the pool a series of blocks projected over the basin. This architectural arrangement cannot be explained as a docking, while it shows interesting parallels with the jutting platform of the sacred pool of Amrit in northern Syria, a religious complex roughly coeval (second half of the sixth century BC) and very similar to that of Motya.
Temple C1 (second half of the XNUMXth - first decades of the XNUMXth century BC)
The Temple of Kothon was rebuilt according to a plan which adhered to the module of the "Four Room Building", with the long side oriented roughly east-west (110 ° -200 °), in a monumental form. The central sector includes three parallel units, flanked on both sides by a transverse nave. The main entrance, positioned on the southern side of the building, with a 2,8 m wide threshold, was framed by a pair of pillars surmounted by Aeolian capitals, with an Egyptian gorge resting above the architrave and crowned by a double cornice moulding. On both sides of the entrance were two small pillars, leaning internally to the doors, devoid of any structural function, and which must be considered a Punic reworking of a classic preparation of the first Canaanite and then Phoenician temples. The vestibule led into a rectangular courtyard, where a series of cultic installations were arranged: a sacred well, with a true square (with the angles oriented according to the cardinal points), an obelisk, erected behind the well, and two stelae, all three aligned along the median axis of the court. All monuments were connected with or incorporated libation holes. From the holes at the foot of the obelisk a channel ran under the pavement emerging on the quay in the direction of the Kothon. Two series of pillars separated the central courtyard from two places of worship. In the northern one (the cell), a platform in the eastern part replaced the altar of Temple C5. Two transverse naves completed the sacred building. The western one had a paved pavement and opened towards the Kothon quay, while the eastern one had three steles aligned along the north-south axis and opened to the east through two symmetrical doors.
The circular Temenos (second half of the XNUMXth century - first decades of the XNUMXth century BC)
The circular Temenos was built together with the Kothon and Temple C1 in the mid-118th century. BC It had a diameter of 2703 m, and has been brought to light almost entirely, with the exception of the south-western section of the circumference. Excavations in Zone C south and C north have shown that the visible remains of the circular Temenos include at least two overlapping architectural phases. The oldest structure (M.0,7) was built with small and medium-sized limestone stones and sandstone piers arranged at roughly regular intervals. The circular Temenos was about 0,8-1,4m wide, reaching a thickness of 1m at the segments next to the north and south sides of the temple. This part of the structure was also the one built with the most accurate technique, with large blocks in the lower rows of the outer side and sandstone blocks and piers at regular intervals. In the area north of Temple C5, the Temenos had a 4 m wide opening, due to the presence of a sacred building, the Sacello C6, with a central niche and two doors (this building was probably the reconstruction of a previous structure - the Sacello C5 - contemporary and aligned with the Temple CXNUMX). In the area west of the Kothon, the Temenos curved sharply in the direction of the pool, probably due to the presence of another entrance to the sacred enclosure.
Temple C2 (480-397 BC) and the circular Temenos
In the next phase, Temple C2 was rebuilt undergoing major changes. The two naves open to the court were closed and the northern one was reconfigured as a real cell with a raised adyton; the two libation orifices were thus obliterated. On the other hand, on the southern side of the court a second cell was delimited, equipped - in the floor - with a preparation suitable for pouring liquids into the subsoil with the help of an amphora neck. The west aisle was repaved and at the northern end a further religious arrangement was created consisting of a low podium faced by a series of jug bottoms inserted in the new flooring, suitable for pouring perfumes. The eastern nave also underwent a general repaving and the displacement of some preparations such as the pole fixed in front of the northern stele. The most significant interventions concerned the central court, which was more clearly separated from the two cells, northern and southern, but remained the fulcrum of religious practice in the building, as indicated by the rearrangement of the various installations all organized along the major median axis of the temple. on the 110 ° direction. From west to east, that is from the side closest to the Kothon towards what appears to be the bottom side of the open space (similarly to when found in the adjacent main cell), there were: the sacred well, with the entrance open at floor, consisting of large limestone slabs; a small platform with a betilo-obelisk (found broken and placed in a large favissa of blocks dug immediately behind the northern wall of the temple itself), with two recesses dug on the west face of the lower part and one, higher up, on the east face; a second square platform built so as to be aligned with the obelisk and to include an orifice for libations on the north side and, in the south-eastern corner, the quadrangular section stele-betylus already in use from the previous phase; a podium leaning against the east wall of the courtyard, with a raised sector of the pavement to one side, perhaps the housing for a throne or a seat. The betilo-obelisk and the sacred well below were connected, at the sub-floor level, by a conduit that branched off from the western foot of the obelisk (with the two grooves side by side) and, crossing the western nave of the temple, headed towards the quay of the Kothon, re-emerging to the surface in the form of a channel dug out of limestone blocks. Other blocks that probably belonged to the canal had already been identified in the westernmost part of the quay, extensively plundered in ancient times.
Sanctuary C3 (XNUMXth century BC)
With the violent destruction following the Syracusan siege of 397/6 BC, the Temple of Kothon was reduced to a heap of ruins and the installations and sacred furnishings inside were largely dispersed. However, after a short interval, the city was reoccupied and the temple area was carefully cleared; the remains of the building were dismantled with religious care and, when possible, reused to create an open-air worship area, called Sanctuary C3. A series of more significant elements, such as the obelisk that stood in the center of the court of the previous temple in front of the sacred well, another betylus erected in the eastern nave and some slabs connected with the cult installations were buried in a large favissa (F .864) consisting of a semicircular pit of about 4 m in diameter, in which betyls / obelisks, bases and piers removed from the temple were arranged in a semicircle in sloping overlapping rows, with the base and the cusp of the broken obelisk in the center. The favissa was aligned with the main entrance of the previous temple, whose threshold (L.1) was kept in sight, evidently as a reminder of the continuity of the place of worship. Sanctuary C3 was delimited through the erection of a temenos, consisting in part of a stone wall (to the south), in part by the alignment of a series of slabs and blocks that belonged to the foundations of the Kothon Temple (to the west), partly from the accumulation of other waste materials incorporated in a construction in clay blocks (to the north-east). A series of deposits was associated with some sections of the temenos wall, especially along the eastern perimeter of the sanctuary. Within the open-air sacred area, various installations were erected for worship while partially maintaining the spatial subdivision of the previous naves of Temple C2. The sacred space was also scattered with votive deposits, distinguishable into two categories: deposits made at the same time as the erection of the cult installations (altars, platforms, bothroi and dividing walls) and deposits resulting from the making of libations or offerings in the aforementioned installations, concentrated within a depositional field limited to the area of the cell and the adyton of the previous temple.
Photo: Lorenzo Nigro: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lorenzo-Nigro-2
Source: Sicily region, wikipedia, web, La Sapienza: http://www.lasapienzamozia.it/Kothon.php
Photo: By No Automatically Readable Author. Samba ~ presumed commonswiki (according to copyright claims). - No automatically readable sources. Presumed own work (according to copyright claims)., Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1748524
Card insertion: Ignazio Caloggero
Information contributions: Web, Region of Sicily
Note: The populating of the files of the Heritage database proceeds in incremental phases: cataloging, georeferencing, insertion of information and images. The cultural property in question has been cataloged, georeferenced and the first information entered. In order to enrich the information content, further contributions are welcome, if you wish you can contribute through our area "Your Contributions"
