In the tombs of Monte Finocchito the dead were laid down with the head resting on a raised shelf of limestone cut into the floor: a small detail, and enough for archaeologists to tell this culture from every other Sicel one. The site occupies a hill in the territory of Noto, in the Tellaro valley, and of the Iron Age settlement almost nothing survives except the access tracks; what speaks is the necropolis. The first three tombs were spotted in 1886 by Aldenhoven, at the place called Balzo del Lupo; then came Paolo Orsi, who from 1893 dug hundreds of them, 72 on the southern slope and 199 on the northern one.
What to see
The tombs are artificial chambers cut into the rock face, single or for several burials, and today they open empty on the flank of the hill. Orsi also found a fortification: a semicircular bastion joined by a curtain wall to a smaller one, both now gone. The hill was tied to the plateau by a narrow saddle, as at Pantalica, and that made it almost impossible to storm. Not far off lie the ruts of a cart road.
The grave goods are seen in museums instead. To the earlier phase belong serpentine-arch fibulae in bronze and iron and plain pottery, oinochoai, askoi and bowls with parallel grooving or plumed ware. To the later phase, after the Greeks landed, belong bronze ornaments, necklaces, rings and bracelets, stirrup fibulae set with amber, ivory and bone, and cups and kotylai in Corinthian geometric taste. The material is split between the Paolo Orsi museum in Syracuse and the civic archaeological museum of Noto.
Visiting
Let us be plain: this is not an archaeological park. There is no ticket office, no signs and no walkways, and the land is private, so access is awkward and has to be arranged. Whoever goes up does it on foot, along farm tracks between olive groves and dry-stone walls, in closed shoes and carrying water: in summer at midday the hill is an oven. The sensible way to visit is back to front: first the cases of the two museums, which give the grave goods whole, and then the hill, where you understand why those people chose so uncomfortable a spot.
Our editors' tip
We start at the Paolo Orsi museum in Syracuse, room by room as far as the Hyblaean material, and we keep two dates in mind: the founding of Syracuse at the end of the eighth century and 660 BC, when the Greek colonies push up into the Hyblaean Mountains. Between those two dates lies the whole story of Finocchito: first the Sicels fall back onto the heights, then they trade with their new neighbours, finally they vanish.