Catania - Etymology

Etymology

The ancient indigenous population of Sicels named their villages after geographical attributes of the locations. The Sicilian word, katane, means "grater, flaying knife, skinning place" or a "crude tool apt to pare". This name was adopted by Greek colonists. Other translations for the name are "harsh lands", "uneven ground", "sharp stones", and "rugged or rough soil". The latter etymologies are easily justifiable since, for many centuries, the Metropolis of Etna has always been rebuilt within its typical black-lava landscape. Around 729 BC, the archaic village of Katane became the Chalcidian colony of Katánē where the native population was rapidly Hellenized. The Naxian founders, coming from the adjacent coast, later used the primal autochthonal name for their new settlement along the River Amenanus. Around 263 BC, the Etnean Decuman City was famous as Catĭna and Catăna. The former has been primarily used for its supposed assonance with "catina", the Latin feminization of the vocable catinus. Catinus hides two meanings: "a gulf, a basin, a bay" and "a bowl, a vessel, a trough". Both explications may be admissible, thanks to the city’s distinctive topography. Around 900, when Catania was part of the emirate of Sicily, it was known as Balad-Al-Fil and Medinat-Al-Fil, Catania's two official Arabic appellatives. The first means "The Village or The Country of the Elephant", while the second means "The City of the Elephant". The Elephant is the lava sculpture of Piazza Duomo’s Fountain. Likely a prehistoric sculpture that was reforged in the Byzantine Era, it appears to be an talisman that was reputedly powerful enough to protect the city from enemies and to keep away misfortune, plagues, or natural calamities. Another Arab toponym was Qatanyiah, "the leguminous plants" (in Arab Qataniyy), whose feminized collective suffix is yiah. Pulses like lentils, beans, peas, broad beans, and lupins were chiefly cultivated in the Catanian Plain before the arrival of Aghlabites' soldiery from Tunisia. Afterwards, many Islamic agronomists will be the principal boosters and those who over-cultivated the citrus orchards in the greater part of Sicily's ploughlands. Lastly, Wadi Musa denotes the River or the Valley of Moses (Arab name of the Simeto River), but this denomination was rarely used.