Necropolis of Pantalica - World Heritage Site

World Heritage Site

Together with the city of Syracuse, Pantalica is listed as "Syracuse and the Rocky Necropolis of Pantalica" on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

In the first half of the 13th century BC, all the coastal settlements suddenly disappeared with the arrival of the Sicels and other Italian peoples. The indigenous population abandoned the coastal settlements and took refuge in the hills and unpleasant mountains chosen for their defensive value and they gathered together in great crowds.

Ancient accounts say the king Hyblon went to the edge of their land and founded Megara Hyblaea in the year 728 BC. But the later birth and expansion of Syracuse determined the destruction of the kingdom, expanding inland to found the city of Acres in 664 BC. The vestiges of that era are Palazzo del Principe or Anaktoron as well as a vast necropolis of some 5000 tombs in small artificial caves excavated in the rock.

The area around the necropolis wasn't only occupied during the Magna Graecia era, but also during the first centuries of the middle ages when populations displaced by the invading barbarians, pirates and, later, the Saracens looked for a safe refuge and found it in this near inaccessible area. Even today, there are remains of visible homes built into the rock when the area was part of the Byzantine Empire and also remains of the small painted chapels called Grotta del Crocifisso, Grotta di San Nicolicchio and Grotta di San Micidario.