LICODIA EUBEA
Catania, Sicily.
The site is
bounded by the Castello Hill to the SW and Mt. Calvario
to the NE. Identified by some scholars with Euboia, colony of Laontinoi mentioned by Herodotos (
7.156),
Strabo (
6.272.6; 10.449.15), and Pseudo Skymnos (VV.283-90), it was probably a Sikel settlement. Various excavations have brought to light necropoleis in the districts of
Calvario, Perriera, Orto della Signora, Bianchette, Sarpellizza, as well as a hypogaeum in via Providenza, all
datable between the end of the 7th c. and the middle of
the 5th c. B.C. The tombs are rock-cut chambers, cists
and pit graves; they contained a type of pottery which is
named after the site itself; it is wheel-made, decorated
with mat paint in dark tones, brown or dark reddish on
a light slip. On the Castello Hill Christian cemeteries have
been found.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
V. La Ciura, “Memoria sull'antica Eubea, oggi Licodia,” Appendis to Biscari,
Viaggio per le
Antichità della Sicilia (1817); P. Orsi, “La necropoli di
Licodia Bubea ed i vasi geometrici del IV periodo sicub,”
RömMitt (1898); id., “Sepolcri siculi dell'ultimo
periodo,”
NSc (1902); id., “Contributi alla Sicilia Cristiana,”
Röm. Quartalschrift für Christl. Altertumskunde
(1904); id., “Sepolcri Siculi e piccole Catacombe Cristiane,”
NSc (1905); id., “Ipogeo siculo-grecizzante di
Licodia Eubea,”
RömMitt (1909); V. Cannizzo, “Topografia archeologica di Licodia Bubea,”
Arch. St. Sic. or.
6 (1909).
C. BUSCEMI INDELICATO
