Scorrione West (Modica, Sicily)

A rock-cut cemetery between Antiquity and the Middle Ages

by Joan Pinar Gil

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Extent: 224 pages

Publisher: Schnell & Steiner

Subjects: Medieval Studies, Mediterranean Archaeology

Language: English

Hardback (Out of print)

(October 2025)

ISBN: 9783795439996

Price: $50.00

Out of stock

This volume presents the results of five years of archaeological research at the site of Scorrione West in south-eastern Sicily, a significant rock-cut cemetery established in the 5th century and reused during the Byzantine period in Sicily. As one of the few systematically excavated and multidisciplinary investigated cemeteries of its kind, Scorrione offers a rare and informative case study.


With 149 documented graves -ranging from funerary chambers to open-air burials- this site offers one of the most comprehensive datasets currently available for the study of Late Antique rock-cut landscapes in the western Mediterranean. The site’s long sequence of use, reuse, abandonment, and collapse -from the 5th to the 9th century- makes Scorrione West a key case study for understanding broader patterns of continuity and transformation in the Sicilian countryside. It provides rare insights into its spatial organization and the social composition of its users. Through an integrated approach combining archaeological, bioarchaeological, and material culture analysis, the volume reconstructs the lived realities and afterlives of a rural community over the course of several centuries.

  • By (author) Joan Pinar Gil