14 July 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

A huge artificial lake in Sicily is an ancient sacred pool that was aligned with the Stars and used 2,500 years ago, study reveals

A sacred freshwater pool on western Sicily’s San Pantaleo Island that dates back some 2,500 years was aligned with the stars, archaeologists have revealed.

The pool, which was first unearthed in the 1920s, was found among the ruins of the ancient island city of Motya, which was a bustling Phoenician port back in the first millennium BC. Phoenicia was an ancient maritime state that lived in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily around what today is Lebanon, from around 2500–64 BC. It was originally believed that the feature was a “Kothon” — an artificial harbor — as it bore similarities to one known from the ancient military port of nearby Carthage, but reanalysis has revealed this assumption to be incorrect.

The research was conducted by archaeologist Professor Lorenzo Nigro of the Sapienza University of Rome in collaboration with the Superintendence of Sicily.

“Kothon” was a harbor but new excavations have drastically changed its interpretation: It was a sacred pool at the center of a huge religious compound,’ said Professor Lorenzo Nigro.

The pool, which was first unearthed in the 1920s, was found among the ruins of Motya (Image: Lorenzo Nigro / Antiquity / Sapienza University of Rome)
The pool, which was first unearthed in the 1920s, was found among the ruins of Motya (Photo: Lorenzo Nigro / Antiquity / Sapienza University of Rome)

Previous research had found a Temple of Ba’al on the edge of Motya’s Kothon, rather than the expected harbor buildings. This unexpected discovery prompted the reinvestigation of the Kothon starting in 2010.  This temple was much to the surprise of the archaeologists who had expected to find harbor buildings instead.

This prompted a reevaluation of the site, with the excavations that began in 2010 seeing researchers fully drain and excavate the artificial basin.

‘This revealed it could not have served as a harbour, as it was not connected to the sea. Instead, it was fed by natural springs,’ Professor  Nigro said.

The centre of the pool once had a podium with a statue of Ba’al (Image: Lorenzo Nigro / Antiquity / Sapienza University of Rome)
The center of the pool once had a podium with a statue of Ba’al (Photo: Lorenzo Nigro / Antiquity / Sapienza University of Rome)

The water feature, the team said, was longer and wider than a modern Olympic swimming pool, making it one of the largest sacred pools in the whole of the ancient Mediterranean.

Archaeologists also found additional temples flanking the Kothon, along with stelae, altars, votive offerings, and a pedestal in the center of the lake that once held a statue of Ba’al, often seen as a fertility god.

Ba’al was worshipped widely was known as the Phoenician god of storms and fertilizing rains. As vanquisher of the sea, the deity was regarded by the Canaanites and Phoenicians as the patron of sailors.

The water feature, the team said, was longer and wider than a modern Olympic swimming pool (Photo: Lorenzo Nigro / Antiquity / Sapienza University of Rome)
The water feature, the team said, was longer and wider than a modern Olympic swimming pool (Photo: Lorenzo Nigro / Antiquity / Sapienza University of Rome)

Together, the experts said, these features confirm that the “Kothon” was not a harbour, but a sacred pool within one of the pre-Classical Mediterranean’s largest cultic complexes. Mapping the site also revealed it was aligned with the stars. 

The new study was published in the journal Antiquity.

Cover Photo: An ancient sacred freshwater pool on western Sicily’s San Pantaleo Island was aligned with the stars (Image: Lorenzo Nigro)

Related Articles

A rare statue of K’awiil, Mayan god of Lighting have uncovered in Mexico

1 May 2023

1 May 2023

In southeastern Mexico, archaeologists uncovered a rare sculpture of a powerful Mayan god near the path of a large-scale rail...

Artificial intelligence is Detecting New Archaeological Sites in the Arabian desert

5 October 2024

5 October 2024

A team of researchers at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi has developed a machine-learning algorithm to help them trawl vast...

Roman Canal and Road Uncovered in The Netherlands near UNESCO heritage sites

30 July 2021

30 July 2021

Dutch archaeologists that a canal and gravel road thought to have been built and used by the Roman military have...

Archaeologists discovered 130 dwellings around the Ringheiligtum Pömmelte monument “German Stonehenge”

15 June 2021

15 June 2021

Archaeologists have unearthed 130 dwellings at an Early Bronze Age monument in Germany, indicating that the ‘Stonehenge’ was once home...

Archaeologists found three large shipwrecks, 139 Viking Graves, and a ship-shaped mound in Sweden

21 October 2024

21 October 2024

Exciting discoveries in Sweden! Archaeologists were preparing to investigate a Stone Age settlement outside Varberg. But they came across a...

A Large Copper Age Necropolis Discovered in Italian Town

16 February 2024

16 February 2024

In the town of San Giorgio Bigarello, near the northern Italia city of Mantua, a large Copper Age necropolis dating...

Restoration of the Duomo of Florence has revealed original polychrome paint

1 December 2022

1 December 2022

During the restoration of the Porta dei Cornacchini and the marble cladding of the northern side of Florence’s Duomo, extensive...

Twin temples linked to Hercules and Alexander the Great discovered in Sumerian city of Girsu

29 January 2024

29 January 2024

Archaeologists discovered two temples, with one buried over the other, during excavations at Girsu, a Sumerian city in southeastern Iraq...

Ancient DNA Reveals Surprising Maternal Lineages at Neolithic Çatalhöyük

28 June 2025

28 June 2025

New research, utilizing ancient DNA analysis, is challenging long-held assumptions about kinship and societal structures in one of the world’s...

Hittite Royal Seal Warns ‘Whoever Breaks This Will Die’

7 July 2024

7 July 2024

During the excavations in Kırıkkale, a cuneiform seal used by the royal family during the Hittite Empire was unearthed. The...

“If this site (Sharda temple)is restored and conserved, it will attract thousands of Hindus and Buddhists from Kashmir and the rest of the world”

7 August 2021

7 August 2021

Sharda Peeth, a historic learning institution located 200 kilometers (124 miles) from Muzaffarabad, the capital and largest city of Pakistan-administered...

4,000 Years of Wisdom: Women’s Rights and Inheritance in the Kültepe Tablets

8 March 2025

8 March 2025

The Kültepe Tablets, discovered in the ancient site of Kültepe (ancient Kanesh) in central Anatolia, are approximately 4,000 years old...

Researchers Finds Nearly 500 Ancient Ceremonial Sites in Southern Mexico with Lidar Technique

26 October 2021

26 October 2021

A team of international researchers led by the University of Arizona reported last year that they had uncovered the largest...

Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of what may be one of the four lost Ancient Egyptian “Sun Temples”

31 July 2022

31 July 2022

A Polish and Italian archaeological mission, while conducting an excavation in the Abusir necropolis near Saqqara in Egypt, unearthed the...

Ancient helmets, temple ruins found at a dig in Velia southern Italy

1 February 2022

1 February 2022

A discovery that “sheds new light on the history of the mighty Greek colony” by Velia. Archaeologists in southern Italy...