Necropolis of Pendente Petrulli

LOCATION
Contrada Pendente - Petrulli
DATING
XNUMXth century A. C
SHORT DESCRIPTION
Necropolis of the Greek period discovered in 1891 during the construction of the railway network. Excavations by Paolo Orsi in 1892-1898.

To understand if it is another site nearby or if in substance it is the same site

Roman farm of Contrada Pendente.

Farm, millstone and two sepulchral nuclei of the imperial and Byzantine epochs, a chapel of the middle imperial age (from da Guidelines of the regional landscape plan. 

site subjected to archaeological constraint DA 2210 of 21/09/1988

The necropolis of Pendente Petrulli
(from the Ragusa municipality website: https://www.comune.ragusa.gov.it/notizie/archivi/rgsottosopra.html?i=7776&docs=12&y=2008)

(excavations 1892-1898) The first discovery of Greek type tombs in Ragusa was made in 1891, during the works for the construction of the railway. The tombs discovered at Pendente Petrulli were of two types. The first type consists of a hollowed-out pit tomba in the rock covered with three plates wedged and welded in a lateral recess, a real housing recess. The narrow and deep pit led up to the real funeral bed which had a lateral niche where the vases that accompanied the deceased had been collected, placed with his head to the south-west. Another type of tomb found in 1891 in Petrulli Pendente always featured a narrow and deep pit covered by three pitch stone slabs. M.here the body of the deceased was buried inside a sarcophagus, also in pitch stone, with a lid and acroteria at the corners. The vases during the funeral ceremony had been placed over the lid of the sarcophagus.
The Orsi returned to Ragusa with 12 workers from 20 to 30 June 1898 and tenaciously resumed the excavation of the necropolis near the station, in the rocky esplanade of Cucinello where the deep trench for the passage of the railway had been cut. The Orsi has good luck and in a short time on the sides of the railway he discovers another 24 Greek tombs of the same type as those found in 1891. Other rectangular pits come to light, with little ceramics and single burials. Tomb VIII is particular: a pit covered with a monolithic slab that contained a monolithic sarcophagus inside, covered with another slab.
But the surprises for Orsi did not end: in tomb XV he found an exceptional concentration of sculptures:

• • the forepart of a sphinx with clearly evident and robust pectorals, with the right leg preserved and with remains of the wing;

• • the rear body of a quadruped perhaps a bovine (or a lion?) with the right thigh in the act of walking;

• a horse, large in life, with a wide mouth, pronounced lips and deep, wide open nostrils.

The pit held still other surprises for the Orsi; in fact three fragmentary slabs with inscriptions were found insideni funeral homes that contained personal Greek names.
Therefore, after the burial of an important person, a real sculptural group with an equine, a bovid and a sphinx must have been built on tomb XV.
The exceptional nature of the monumental discoveries in the Greek necropolis of Ragusa station, in Cucinello, in 1898, however, was destined to increase.
During the excavations Orsi found the foundation of a building, rectangular in shape of m. 8,40 x 5,85. Inside the building there was a tomb, tomb X. Orsi supposed that there must have been columns on the base: 4 on the short sides and 6 on the long ones. New discoveries of the Greek necropolis of Ragusa took place in 1956, right on the slopes of the hill in the Rito district. Antonio Di Vita discovered seventy-six tombs in the area behind the hospital.
Forty-three of these tombs were similar to those found by Orsi, that is, graves with grave goods and inumsingle actions. Nineteen tombs were built with overlay slabs and seven were actual sarcophagi.
During the excavations of this other nucleus of the Greek necropolis of Ragusa, 5 enchytrismòs tombs were also found, that is, amphorae that contained the burial of small bodies of children who died at an early age. The parents had buried their little children out of pity using the amphorae. This is normal in Greek necropolises. But it is very important to have found it here in Ragusa; this means that these Greeks from Ragusa had come with their families, wives and children. Also in this necropolis a monumental sculpture was found: a lion depicted crouching on its front legs that must have been part of the ornament of a prestigious tomb, perhaps of an important person, as in the XV tomb of Orsi in 1898 and as happens in Castiglione . finally, another strip of the Greek necropolis of Ragusa came to light in 1960 in via Lombardo Radice.
Here, during the construction of a building, nine tombs and four roads were discovered, of which the footprints of the passage of the wagons remained well engraved in the rock.
This strip of the necropolis has other peculiarities: rectangular pits inside which the corpses were burned and the horses, rams and pigs that belonged to the Greeks deposited here were also buried.
The Greek necropolis of Ragusa confirms that these Greeks belonged to aristocratic families who had brought up to Camarina and also inside not only their best and most precious ceramics directly imported from Greece (a protoactic Lekane, a Kylix of Siana etc.), but also their funeral customs. Indeed, these particular customs seem to be exhibited here to further strengthen their origin and belonging to the Sicilians perched on the hill where Ragusa Ibla will later be built.

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Card insertion: Ignatius Caloggero

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