EVIDENZE DELL’ANTICO PORTUS PELORI DA ANALISI PALEOTOPOGRAFICHE DELLA PENISOLA DI CAPO PELORO (SICILIA NORD-ORIENTALE)

Abstract

Bottari A., Bottari C. & Carveni P., Paleotopographic analysis of Peloro Cape Peninsula: evidence of the ancient Portus
Pelori (NE Sicily, Italy). (IT ISSN 0394-3556, 2006).
From the Archaic to the Late Roman period the name “Peloro” was used to indicate an anthropic area developed around the first
known human settlement on the Sicilian shore of the Straits of Messina. It was geographically the most eastern tip of north Sicily and
today it is identified with the Peloro Cape Peninsula. Such a settlement has been dated to 2200 ÷ 2000 B.C. through recoveries of
ceramic fragments. Different historical sources mention that at the 5th century B.C. numerous Syracuse and Carthaginian naval armadas landed for long periods at Peloro.
Given that at present day the morphology of Peloro Cape Peninsula does not have any protected shelter to offer repair to hundreds of
naval ships as documented by historians, geomorphologic surveys have been carried out in the area to verify whether historical documents are consistent with the paleotopography of the study area.
The approach is based on the analysis of the morphotectonic characteristics of the Peloro and specifically on the morphotectonic evolution of its coastal lowland, following the regional uplift that has interested it during the Quaternary and particularly in the last 0.7 Myr.
The Straits of Messina configuration is the result of a progressive uplift that interested the sedimentation areas correspondent to a
complex system of tectonic grabens controlled by NE-SW and E-W normal faults. The geological data together with the uncovered
remains of ancient buildings and the shells of present day molluscs found in the study area, as well as some comparison with historiographical sources, support that the uplift of Peloro Cape Peninsula is of about 1.5 ÷ 2.0 metres in the last 2500 years. The modelling of the paleotopography of the coastal lowland, referred to the 5th century B.C., shows a major extension of the Pantano Piccolo and particularly its connection with the Tyrrhenian Sea through a canal hundreds of metres wide. Such a result induces as to locate the ancient Peloro harbour in the basin of the Pantano Piccolo, which for extension and depth could have sheltered up to 320 ships. Such a location of the ancient harbour at about one nautical mile from Peloro Cape is also supported by different historical sources which report the distances from the polis of Messana (the present day Messina) and justifies also the appellative of “Portus Pelori” (Peloro Harbour).