MANFRIA
Sicily.
A hilly area on the S
coast of Sicily, ca. 10 km N of Gela. Because of its favorable position Manfria was inhabited continuously from
the Early Bronze Age to the 5th c. A.D., and again in the
13th c. at the time of Frederick II. The prehistoric necropoleis with oven-shaped, rock-cut tombs were explored around 1900. In 1960 a new excavation on the slope under the present “houses of Manfria” brought to light a whole Early Bronze Age village with elliptical houses and
numerous ovens and hearths. More recently, remains of
Greek farms have been identified in several places. One
of them, in the location called Mangiatoia, dates from
the second half of the 4th c. B.C., and contained a large
deposit of Sicilian black-glaze and red-figure vases in the
style of the Manfria Painter. Under the farmhouse Greek
material of the 7th and 6th c. B.C. was recovered, attributable to an earlier archaic settlement by Geloan colonists. According to numismatic evidence, the Greek farmhouses of Manfria were destroyed during the war
between Agathokles and the Carthaginians in 310 B.C.
New farms were established in this area during the
Roman Imperial period, in connection with a settlement
in the valley of the torrent Comunelli, W of Manfria,
where ruins emerge here and there in the area called
Monumenti.
All the archaeological material found at Manfria during the recent excavations is in the Gela Museum.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
P. Orsi,
BPI 27 (1901) 159ff; P. Orlandini,
Kokalos 6 (1960) 26ff; id.,
Il villaggio preistorico
di Manfria presso Gela (1962); D. Adamesteanu,
NSc
(1959) 290ff; (1960) 220; id.,
Kokalos 4 (1958) 59ff;
id., “Vasi dipinti del IV secolo di fabbrica locale a Manfria,”
Miscellanea G. Libertini (1958) 25ff; A. D. Trendall,
The red-figured vases of Lucania, Campania, and Sicily (1967) 592ff.
P. ORLANDINI
