We arrived in Pantalica, which was the very ancient Hybla. We climbed up paths full of goats and entered the tombs of the necropolis, caves-dwellings, the sanctuaries excavated in the steep walls of the sheer rock above the Anapo.
Vincenzo Consolo, Le pietre di Pantalica
The deep rocky walls of the plateau of Pantalica rise between the Anapo River and the Calcinara Torrent. Its white calcareous surfaces are broken by the darkness of thousands of protohistoric rock-cut tombs. Not only did the natural fortress of Pantalica host one of the biggest protohistorical communities of Sicily, but was also inhabited during the Paleochristian and Byzantine Ages, as it is shown by the numerous catacombs and churches that were dug along the crags of its massif.
Our archaeological private tour in Pantalica consists of a trek along paths through the rock faces of the Anapo River and Calcinara Torrent, which contain almost 4000 tombs cut into the limestone between the 13th and the 8th centuries BC. We will also go in the so-called Anaktoron, a megalithic 12th-century BC building, and different medieval rock-cut churches and dwellings.
