Morgantina

Morgantina

Μοργάντιον / Μοργαντίνη
View of Morgantina's Hellenistic agora. An Iron Age settlement was located on the Cittadella hilltop in the background. Mount Etna is seen in the distance.
Shown within Italy
Alternate name	Morgantia, Morgantium, Morgentia, Murgantia, Murgentia
Location	Aidone, Province of Enna, Sicily, Italy
Coordinates	37°25′51″N 14°28′46″E / 37.43083°N 14.47944°E / 37.43083; 14.47944Coordinates: 37°25′51″N 14°28′46″E / 37.43083°N 14.47944°E / 37.43083; 14.47944
Type	Settlement
History
Periods	Late Bronze Age to Roman Republic
Site notes
Excavation dates	1884, 1912, 1955–1963, 1966–1967, 1968–1972, 1978–present
Archaeologists	Luigi Pappalardo, Paolo Orsi, Erik Sjöqvist, Richard Stillwell, Hubert L. Allen, William A. P. Child, Malcolm Bell III, Carla Antonaccio
Management	Soprintendenza BB.CC.AA. di Enna
Website	Area Archeologica Morgantina (Italian)

Morgantina is an archaeological site in east central Sicily, southern Italy. It is sixty kilometres from the coast of the Ionian Sea, in the province of Enna. The closest modern town is Aidone, two kilometres southwest of the site. The site consists of a two-kilometre long ridge running southwest-northeast, known as Serra Orlando, and a neighboring hill at the northeast called Cittadella. Morgantina was inhabited in several periods. The earliest major settlement was made at Cittadella and lasted from about 1000/900 to about 450 BCE. The other major settlement was located on Serra Orlando, and existed from about 450 BCE to about 50 CE. Morgantina has been the subject of archaeological investigation since the early 20th century.

Serra Orlando was identified as Morgantina by Kenan Erim following the discovery of a number of coins bearing the Latin word HISPANORUM. Erim used these coins and passages from Livy to argue that the city found at Serra Orlando was in fact the ancient city of Morgantina.

The name appears in different forms among different authors: Morgantia, Murgantia and Morgantium in scholarship; in ancient sources Strabo used the name Μοργάντιον and Diodorus Siculus used Μοργαντίνη. The name is variously written by Latin writers as Murgantia, Murgentia and Morgentia. The inhabitants were called Murgentini by Cicero and Pliny the Elder.

According to Strabo Morgantina was founded by a pre-Roman Italian group known as the Morgetes of Rhegium.Dionysius of Halicarnassus wrote that the Morgetes were led by a king named Morges. The earliest historical date associated with Morgantina is 459 BCE, when Ducetius, leader of the indigenous Sicel population of central Sicily, attacked the city and captured it. Morgantina was probably still under Ducetius' control when he was defeated at Nomai by Syracuse in 449 BCE.