A dozen of the tombs were never finished: the rock is roughed out halfway, the mouth barely started, and the work stops there. The other 87 are chambers cut into the limestone, circular or nearly so in plan, and in some of them a niche opens in the back wall. They were dug by the people of the Castelluccio culture, the Sicilian Early Bronze Age, between 2200 and 1450 BC, on a plateau two and a half kilometres from Pozzallo that belongs to the territory of Modica.
What to see
The chambers open on the rocky slopes on both sides of the road linking Bellamagna to Zimmardo: 79 of them lie along that route, almost all facing south and southeast. The entrance is a low hole, often half buried by soil washed downhill; behind it the burial chamber widens out. In the Castelluccio culture, cells like these were sealed with stone slabs, and at several sites those slabs carry incised spiral motifs.
The plateau became a burial ground again much later: in late antiquity nine small hypogea and about thirty pit graves were cut here, recognisable by their rectangular shape and sharp edges, unlike the rounded outline of the prehistoric chambers. The chambers have long been empty; the typical grave goods of this culture, pots painted with brown lines on a yellowish red ground, hourglass cups and basins on a tall foot, are now seen in the archaeological museums of the Hyblaean area.
Visiting
This is not a fenced park: no ticket office, no opening hours, no panel to explain what you are looking at. You come by car along the Bellamagna-Zimmardo road, between dry-stone walls and cultivated fields, then continue on foot along the verges; the chambers show up only from close by, because the tall grass hides them. Bring closed shoes, water and some caution: the ground is uneven, partly private, and not every opening is safe. An hour is enough to take in the whole site.
Our editors' tip
Come when the sun is low, early in the morning or late in the afternoon: the raking light lifts the shadow of each entrance off the slope and the tombs become readable, while at midday they vanish into the white of the rock. If the place leaves you curious, half an hour by car brings you to Cava d'Ispica, where chambers of the same kind can be visited along a laid-out trail.
