name Modica, with few exceptions and fragmentary, are unknown to classical Greek sources and literary fragments of the ancient Sicilian surveyors.
The first historical records date back to Roman times. Silius Italico, having to make the list of rebel towns in Rome after the massacre of Syracuse (212 BC), reveals the name of Modica in a verse "And Netum et Muthyce pubesque liquentis Achatis.
Cicereone is the first to give the first page of the documented history of the ancient city in the process, in defense of the Sicilians against Verres, the governor very bad history with his embezzlement.
In his authoritative testimony, Mothyce, in the year 73 BC was one of those 34 municipalities of Sicily which had imposed the obligation to provide every year in Rome, the tenth part of agricultural products and had, at that time, 187 Aratores.
After the trial of Verres, for many centuries, it lost all traces of the city, Pliny and Ptolemy are the only writers of the Roman period cesarean that recall the name. From Pliny we learn that Mothyca, in imperial times, was a city Stipendiari, subject as the near Hybla (Ragusa and Ragusa Lower Farm) to pay tribute stable. By Ptolemy on the other hand the first news of the astronomical position of the district and the mouth of the creek.
One wonders, however, how far we can go back in time to reconstruct the history of the city of Modica and what are the witnesses of the Roman era.
Modica, as well as other centers of Iblei, gravitated in the civilization of the Sicilians. To use the term Sicilians (Sikeloi) were the same Greeks who, when they arrived for the first time on the coast of Sicily in 740 BC, in the first wave of colonization, they found the island inhabited by three peoples: the Sicilians in the east the Sicani in the Central West and Elimi in the west.
The more complete picture of the situation comes from Thucydides (fifth century BC.) Which, in the sixth book of the History of the Peloponnesian War, traces the succession of peoples who occupied Sicily at the time of the first wave of settlers from the Greek peninsula .
Of Sicilian people also speak Dionysius of Halicarnassus to the end of the century. BC in his Roman Archaeology and at the same time, the historian Diodorus Siculus, a native of Agira, in his work entitled the Bibilioteca.
problems linked to the interpretation of these stories are many and concern, first of all, the springs that drew the Greek historians and news manipulation to which themselves were subject to justify and promote interressi precise.
Many facts seem, to date, including assumed and the geographic location of Sicilians who occupied the eastern part of the island. In addition, archaeological investigation has confirmed this situation.
The population of the territory is to be dated Eneolithic Modica (3200-2200 BC) Less than 15 miles from where it rose, then the modern town of Modica, the Sicilians the Copper Age period (3200 BC), extracted, without the aid of metal tools necessary to shape the flint knives, cusps, tools from the mine Tabuto Monte, one of the oldest in Sicily. The
Eneolithic and the following period (Age Early Bronze Age) are known almost exclusively for the finds and the presence of many cemeteries.
If there is an area very rich in necropolis in Sicily is undoubtedly the Modica. The presence of this type of funeral reused over the centuries, including through rehabilitation, gives this place the look of real stone beehives along the sides of hills.
However, despite the presence of a great civilization like that of the Sicilians, the archaeological evidence relating to the town of Modica is fragmentary and discontinuous since, the insistence of the town on the ancient and ongoing interventions and rehabilitation of tampering ' construction, some problems for the discovery and preservation of ancient remains.
The oldest archaeological evidence are to be referred to Ancient Bronze Age (2200-1400 BC, an era marked by facies Castelluccio) and this is especially documented cemetery in the valley of the Pruni Well, on the western side. (Castelluccio culture derives its name from a settlement near Noto discovered by Paolo Orsi. Among the distinctive elements of Castelluccio there a particular type of grave was dug in the rock and a cave called the use of artificial vessels ceramic, shaped by hand, painted in red and painted with geometric motifs black or brown). Currently the largest group of graves, the surviving stone quarries and modern buildings, is located in the Quartiriccio: there are about thirty, have an oval or circular, are sometimes preceded by a ANTICELL. Other graves apparently more isolated, because it was more intense construction activity, are located along the Santa Venera and at the rock church of the same name, adapted in late Roman burial niches dug into the floor with the deposition. For
be referred to other prehistoric remains found in the valley near the fountain of San Pancrazio. In 1878, during road works, many artifacts were recovered mainly of industry policy: lava millstones, tools and flakes of obsidian and flint. They had found many pottery fragments, now missing, which is decorated with geometric signs blacks on a red background, framed within a type of the material culture of the period Castelluccio.
Another of the prehistoric settlement is documented across town, nell'altura of Montserrat, where the slope below, the tombs were found in a kiln in many cases expanded and re-used medieval setting up troglodyte.
the period from the late Bronze Age iron age (1200-1100 BC) can be assigned the necropolis Contrada Mista on the eastern side of the valley of the Well of thorns. The situation was already affected at the beginning of the twentieth century because of extractions in a stone quarry and the situation worsened in parallel with the building expansion leading to the destruction of around thirty of the hundred or so tombs artificial caves. If, initially, the tombs were first assigned to the Sicilian period, corresponding to the small castle, in fact, in light of more extensive research, presenting characters who report to a later age: in fact there are graves in an elliptical entrance keystone "a monument" to frame with a triple and tombs quadrangular floor and ceiling with the pier side preceded by a vestibule.
On the western side in 1925 were found two tombs are very rich, in fact, the kits consist of more than thirty vessels and jewelry made of bronze and iron, pottery of various types with geometric decoration, carved or painted.
For the classical period (VI-V century BC.) Does not yet have much evidence except those of the district ORET (O'RITU) in northern CHORA (the chora is the land surrounding the town). The witnesses thicken during the Hellenistic period (third century BC.) Both domestically and in the city center. An important finding was that of 1914, while working in the bed of the stream Ianni Mauro, an equestrian statue in bronze. The statue was dated by the archaeologist Paolo Orsi Roman Hellenistic age. Recently, the sides of the spur of the Castle are being discovered and described the Necropolis containing essential for defining the topography of ancient Modica
eastern slope has the greatest concentration of graves outside the home and distributed along the path from the rocks down to the valley floor. The most conspicuous is given from three large tombs located under the large garden wall north of the Castle and traces of a small underground remains at a lower level, unfortunately everyone is devastated by the collapse that use such as quarries for the extraction of stones.
Inside, however, is still possible to distinguish various types of burial vaults with a stack of arcosolia monosomy, polysomes and canopies.
Minor are the remains of the necropolis on the west side of the spur of the Castle, the rest was all torn from setting rock and the excavation for the opening of the East Gate of the castle, in the first half of the twelfth century, led to the ' current isolation in a high position in the rock wall.
areas immediately adjoining the existing urban center in Roman times there was a significant Reasonable Occupation of townships and villages that are known only on the basis of its cemeteries, usually underground or graves.
source: http://www.modica.it/storia_preistoria.htm
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