Sant'Angelo Muxaro, Italy

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necropolis in the valley, together with that at Pantálica, is one of the most impressive in the whole of Sicily. The main remains are an anteroom and a vaulted main room with benches all around. The grave goods are exhibited in the Syracuse Museum.

Myth

The necropolis supports the theory that this was the site of the Sicanian capital Kamikos of the mythical King Kokalos. Kokalos became part of Greek legend when Daidalos, the builder of the labyrinth at Knoss, fled from King Minos of Crete. Minos pursued him, landed in Minoa and reached the mountain fortress of Kamikos, which Daidalos had built for King Kokalos. The king received Minos in a friendly fashion and promised to hand over the refugee to him, but "he was then murdered by his host's daughters whilst bathing; they are said to have poured boiling pitch over him - other sources say it was boiling water". The Cretans, led by Herodot, then sent an expeditionary force against Kokalos and besieged Kamikos for five years, but in vain. Ancient legend has it that, when Akragas (now Agrigent) was founded in 583 B.C.

Minos' bones were handed back to the Cretans. Sophocles mentions this in his tragedy "Kamikoi", only fragments of which have been preserved. Kamikos is mentioned twice more in historical records: prior to 480 B.C., when relatives of Theros of Akragas rise up against the latter, are beaten off and take refuge in Kamikos, and again in 258 B.C., when the Romans take Kamikos.