Abstract

Throughout antiquity, Sicily and South Italy provided a grand stage for encounters and relationships between different groups attracted by abundant natural resources and strategically advantageous locations in the Mediterranean: indigenes, Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans and Carthaginians all left their mark on both the material and intangible cultures of these areas.
In this volume a group of international scholars examines the complexity and richness of those interactions, and the ways in which they contributed to the formation of local identities from individual to civic level. Across a chronological span from prehistory to Late Antiquity, chapters explore the articulation of evolving relationships through religion, buildings, artefacts and funerary practices, with a particular focus on Sicily. Inscriptions and other texts reveal how language was used to express ethnic affiliations and claim social ones, together with the significance of location in defining specific identities, while cutting-edge technology applied to both old datasets and current archaeological work provides important new insights.
This volume will be of particular interest to scholars concerned with cultural interactions and the relationship between material culture and identity.