Calatubo Castle
| Calatubo Castle | |
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| Alcamo in Italy | |
Night view of Calatubo Castle.
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 Calatubo Castle
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| Coordinates | 38°00′53″N 12°59′09″E / 38.01472°N 12.98583°ECoordinates: 38°00′53″N 12°59′09″E / 38.01472°N 12.98583°E |
| Type | Castle |
| Site information | |
| Open to the public |
no |
| Condition | abandoned |
The Calatubo Castle (Latin: catrum Calathatubi; Arabic: قلعة ﺍوبي - Qal'at 'Awbi; Italian: Castello di Calatubo) is a fortress located near the town of Alcamo, Sicily, southern Italy.
The site has remains of a settlement of the Elymians and a necropolis.
Being next to A29 motorway, it has fallen into disrepair and is therefore closed to visitors, although the Town Council of Alcamo has often expressed the desire to recover it.
The origins of the castle date back to some years before 1093, the year in which Roger I of Sicily defined the boundaries of the diocese of Mazara that included "Calatubo with all its dependencies".
In ancient times, around the castle there was the village of Calatubo, which based its business on the extraction of stones for water and wind mills from the quarries around the creek Finocchio, as mentioned by the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi in The Book of Roger, written in 1154.
The village of Calatubo was abandoned after the conquest by Frederick II and the castle lost its original function as a military fortress, turning into a farm. During this period, the castle joined warehouses, stables and other structures used for the administration of the agricultural fief of Calatubo.
Since the Middle Ages, because of its visibility, the Calatubo Castle had an important strategic role: it was part of a line of towers and forts along the coast from Palermo to Trapani; this defensive line was used to transmit light signals in case of Saracens' attack. In particular, the castle of Calatubo guaranteed the flow of information that took place between the outposts of Carini, Partinico and Castellammare del Golfo.
At the end of the nineteenth century in the second courtyard some warehouses were set up for the production of the wine "Calatubo".
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Wikipedia