Phoenicians, Salt, and Time
Yesterday we went on a tour to the island of Mozia, a small island off the coast of Marsala, the oldest Phoenician settlement in the Mediterranean, and to the saltpans of Genna where salt has been collected from the sea for thousands of years. The island, especially, was fascinating, its history going back at least to the 5th century B.C. We saw the white marble Greek statue of Giovane di Mozia (the Young Man of Mozia) We saw the House of Mosaics which was once a magnificent house with Doric columns and mosaic floors made of marine pebbles in the shapes of animals with decorative borders. In the island's museum, I also found fascinating the archeological evidence of the Phoenicians' way of weaving, using weights to keep the warp threads taut. After the tour of the island and the lagoon, where what looked like hundreds of people were wind surfing, we toured the saltpans of Saline Genna ...