Rock Village in Segesta
The Rocky inhabited area of the Archaeological Park of Segesta is located along the slopes of Mount Barbaro.
The houses, dating back to the end of the 6th century BC, were built by making regular cuts in the rocky bank and raising some sections of masonry only where the cut rock did not reach the desired height.
The inhabited area has two large rooms separated by a partition, in which the walls and floor are made of carefully worked stone. In the front compartment a silo for storing food is still visible, while a tank in the rear one is covered by a subsequent transformation of the house; some holes in the rock surface indicate the presence of wooden poles for the roof.
During the Augustan era, a series of changes were made to the town: another small room was created in the rear compartment; an oven and two altars for domestic cults were set against the back wall; the walls were plastered and the rock paved with earthenware. The appearance of the house, judging by the stucco frames that have been found, must have been stately. Finally, in the Swabian period, between the 12th and 13th centuries, the passage between the two rooms was closed and the previous room was reoccupied by a nucleus of single-family homes, each with a fireplace.
