The so-called Castello Sicano is a rock fortress carved entirely into a limestone wall of Cava d'Ispica, in the territory of Modica. It lies about halfway along the gorge, the long valley full of caves, catacombs and dwellings cut into the rock.
What to see
The wall, about thirty metres high, drops sheer in its upper grey part and overhangs in its lower, yellowish-red part. The castle's singularity lies in the architecture of its superimposed floors, linked by internal stairs still visible, with notches for climbing, and by external stairs whose collapse has exposed the highest floors. The rooms are almost all rectangular or square, with niches in the walls and the recesses of doors and windows; nearly all of them take light from a long corridor running along the outer wall.
According to the sources the work is so monumental and complex that it is hard to think of it as the labour of a single generation, even with digging tools of bronze or iron, and it may have been the residence of the local prince. The archaeologist Pace attributed the oldest caves of the gorge to the Sicani, while many others are catacombs and rock dwellings of later periods; the caves near the castle are listed among the great settlements of the Sicels.
Visiting
Cava d'Ispica stretches for about thirteen kilometres and in places is around one hundred metres deep; along the route many caves are on several levels, are linked by trapdoors cut into the rock and can be reached only with ropes, walkways or steep steps. The sources give no hours or access arrangements for the castle: check them before going.
Our editors' tip
Not far away, on a rise above the valley, is the necropolis of Calicantone, of the Early Bronze Age, linked to the Castelluccio culture, with about a hundred rock-cut chamber tombs. Excavations between 2012 and 2015 uncovered a large oval hut with 150 objects inside and skeletons that document a sudden, perhaps violent, abandonment of the site around 1600 BC.
