A Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age site inland from Syracuse in southeast Sicily, occupied c 13th-8th centuries BC. The 5,000 rock-cut tombs which honeycomb the hillside around have yielded great quantities of material. Pottery and metal goods from the tombs indicate trading contacts with both mainland Italy and the Aegean. The characteristic local pottery is wheelmade, red-slipped, and burnished. Four phases run from contemporary with Late Mycenaean c 1200 BC to well after the first Greek colonies formed in the 8th century BC. At least one public building has been exposed: a large stone built structure described as an anaktoron or palace.