Siracusa - Museo Nuovo Archeologico (Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi)

The exhibits include such items as: The Bronze Age Tomb of Vallelungo (a tall, painted container with handles and with a narrow, conical foot, 19th-15th centuries B.C.). Items from Castelluccio (19th-15th centuries B.C.), including the limestone door from Tomb 31 with a relief thought to be a diagrammatic representation of the sexual act. Earthenware jars and basins on tall stands, the high backs of which are decorated with geometric scratch drawings and fishes and birds - Thapsos (15th-13th centuries B.C.).

The building is a brick and glass edifice by Franco Minnisi, aimed at providing a museum with the most modern technical and educational facilities. The core of the complex is a round building with an information desk, with the individual departments leading off it on three sides.

A Geology, Pre- and Early History B 1. Colonies of Chalcis (Khalkis), Megara Hyblaea 2. Syracuse C Hellenised indigenous centers as well as Agrigento and Gela To supplement the above, there is an audio/video show in the basement.

By means of objects, plans, photographs and informatory panels this department covers Geology, Palaeontology, the Early and Late Stone Age (especially cave-finds from the fourth and third centuries B.C.), as well as the Bronze Age. Finds from Pantálica, including a collection of red translucent vessels from Tomb 38 of the north-west necropolis (13th-11th centuries B.C.). Vases and bronze weapons from the necropolis at Montagna near Caltagirone (1270-1000 B.C.).

Three graves from the necropolis of Madonna del Piano north of Grammichele, where 300 graves from the 11th-ninth centuries B.C. have been found since 1959; nearby can be seen a stone sarcophagus, an interment in the bare soil and in a large earthenware vessel.

Other places covered in this department include Cassibile, Mädica, Centúripe, Calascibetta, Noto, Lentini and Sant'Angelo Muxaro (graves from the eighth-fifth centuries B.C.).

Chalkis (Khalkis) colonies, Megara Hyblaea. First of all this department provides detailed information on Greek colonization from the sixth century B.C. The finds are arranged in order of the places where they were found; only a few can be mentioned here: Naxos: temple cornice in terracotta (E. seventh century B.C.), fragment of a relief showing Hercules and the Hydra (E. sixth century B.C.), the Gorgon in terracotta (c. 450 B.C.) Katane: ceramic of black figures from Athens, earthenware votives.

Leontinoi: Attic ceramic with red figures, including a painted crater-chalice from Syracuse (364-340 B.C.), kuros (statue of a naked youth; c. 500 B.C.) Megara Hyblaea: earthenware votives to Demeter and Persephone, fragment from the side of an altar with volutes and palmette (c. 550 B.C.). Kuros with the inscription "Sombrotidas, Son of Mandrocles" (c. 550 B.C.), Doric fragments from the agora, a frieze with floral metopes from a tomb (early fifth century B.C.), a goddess pacifying two suckling babes (indigenous work, traces of paint on the base, c. 550 B.C.), Aeolian capital with large volutes, Attic ceramics.

Syracuse

The tour commences at the statue of Venus, found by Landolina in 1804, a Roman copy of the original Greek work and continues through the rich Syracuse Collection, arranged topographically according to the district of the city where they were found.

From the Ortygia and Achradina districts: marble tombstones (fifth century B.C.), a kuros with cape (c.500 B.C.), a caryatid (female figure forming entablature support) wearing a peplos robe and carrying a pitcher in her right hand (Pentelic marble, 470-460 B.C.).

Piazza Vittoria: earthenware statues offered as votive gifts, from the Sanctuary of Demeter (fourth century B.C.).

Finds from necropoles: including a Lucan hydria (water-vessel), Corinthian and Attic ceramics, a small Ionian capital (sixth century B.C.), terracotta relief of the head of a youth (460 B.C.), a large bronze cauldron with lid.

Hellenized indigenous centers, Gela and Akragas. Here will be found items from Heloros, Akrai, Kasmenai, Monte Casale, Canicattini and other places. The main ones to mention are: Camarina: superb Attic vases with figures in red, including a colonnaded crater (wide-mouthed) vase from 460 B.C.; numerous votive statues of Persephone and Artemis, including some showing the goddess wrapping a dead person in her cloak. Grammichele: torso of a kuros (marble, early fifth century B.C.); seated female deity (terracotta, c. 470 B.C.); Gorgon antifixa (roof ornaments) and painted terracotta cornice mouldings (sixth century B.C.).

Gela: architectural fragments from Temple B, early sixth century B.C.; tympanum and cornice (cyma), econstructed central acroterium of a man on horseback, Gorgon, all in terracotta; Earthenware sarcophagi, one of which is decorated internally with Ionic columns in the corners.

Akrágas: finds from a rural Demeter sanctuary (Santuario Rupestre near S. Biagio).

In the garden (stop in front of the museum entrance on the right and climb up a footpath) immediately behind the surrounding wall will be found the Protestant Cemetery with a memorial to British sailors who died here in the Napoleonic Wars, and on the wall to the left a monument to the German poet Count August von Platen, who died here in 1835 when a guest of Count Landolina and whom Landolina honored in the inscription on his gravestone as "the German Horatio". Opposite stands a bust of the poet.

On entering the building the visitor will see large colored floor-plans giving information about the lay-out. At the far end of the central corridor will be seen the Landolina Venus, which stands near to the central room from where a tour of the museum should begin. Here will be found information about the history of the museum, which was first sited in Cathedral Square before moving here. A corridor round the outside gives facts, by means of text and photos, about the individual departments A, B and C, which are accessible from the corridor. The visitor is guided to them by green arrows. Similar arrows also pilot visitors along cleverly laid out routes through the labyrinth of corridors inside the departments.

The rooms themselves are basically hexagonal in form, each with its individual departments. There are no windows; all are artificially lit, but to good effect, and there is excellent air- conditioning. As Pre- and Early History is displayed on one side and the period after the Greek immigration on the other, the visitor is sure to find much to interest him in sections A, B and C.

Francavilla: "pinakes", relief plaques similar to those from Lokroi in the Reggio Calabria Museum, depicting worship of Demeter: Demeter and Hades enthroned, Persephone with a aiden before her, Hermes approaching the two Gods of the Underworld, and so on. Entúripe: Attic and indigenous ceramics, terracotta sculptures and reliefs (e.g. a lion killing a ull, end of sixth century B.C.).

Adrano: bronze statuette of an athlete, 460 B.C. (like some of the particularly beautiful ceramic essels, it turns slowly around so that the visitor can view it from all sides).

There is a special section devoted to models of Syracusan temples, with detailed video films to guide the visitor; the models are of the following: The Temple of Apollo, early sixth century B.C., with earthenware cornices and metopes.

The Temple of Athena, post-480 B.C. The Ionian Temple, which stood immediately to the north of the Athenaion and is no longer visible there: probably dedicated to Artemis, it had six columns at the ends and sixteen along the sides, those at the ends having reliefs on the lower sections (columnae caelatae), the deep proanos had two columns by five, the cella was hypaethral, i.e., it had no roof.

In addition to these models there are finds from the above buildings, from a large altar and a small temple.