Settlement patterns and ancestral heritage

Housed in Villa Lucrezia, the 19th-century summer residence of a renowned local baronial family, the museum displays ethno-anthropological objects related to the area’s farming and mining culture. Through clothing, tools and furnishings used between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it recounts the birth-to-death life cycle in Villarosa and central Sicily, highlighting artefacts donated by the community and illustrating local customs, traditions and aspects of daily, family and social life. On the lower floor, a selection of work tools and photographs vividly documents the harsh conditions in the mines, offering a direct glimpse into the local mining reality.

In the Calascibetta area, human habitation takes on archaic, profound forms linked to rock and the cult of the dead. The artificial cave necropolises, dug into sandstone ridges, are among the earliest signs of human presence and are shaped in symbiosis with the landscape. The necropolis of Realmese contains over a hundred tombs dating back to the Late Bronze Age. These feature circular or quadrangular chambers with convex vaulted ceilings, carved directly into the calcarenite. During the Byzantine era, some of these tombs were repurposed as dwellings, highlighting the functional adaptation of rock spaces: places originally intended for the deceased became havens for the living, illustrating a tangible and symbolic continuity of habitation.

Even older is the necropolis of Contrada Malpasso, dating back to between 2500 and 2000 BC. Here, the so-called ‘cluster tombs’ emerge: interconnected chambers arranged on different levels that evoke a primitive concept of communal living. This may be the earliest example of shared inhabited space on the island. In these necropolises, rock becomes architecture, memory and protection, offering an original way of life that intertwines life, death and landscape.

This rock-cut settlement was inhabited from the late Copper Age until the 20th century. It is a testament to the area’s continuous habitation and cultural continuity, particularly during the Byzantine period (535–827 AD), prior to the Arab conquest of Sicily. The rock-cut habitat, which was already in place before the arrival of the Arabs, was adopted by them due to its similarity to their areas of origin. 

The site preserves traces of various eras, including protohistoric rock-cut chamber tombs, archaic Greek chamber tombs carved into the rock, and Roman and Late Antique structures such as arcosolia (arched niches used for burials) and columbaria (chambers with niches for storing cinerary urns). During the Byzantine era, many of these cavities were converted into places of worship, such as the two rock-cut churches, as well as production centres. Evidence of this can be seen in the two palmenti (structures used for pressing grapes or olives) and other rooms dedicated to processing raw materials. 

The presence of a qanat for water collection attests to the hydraulic techniques introduced during the Arab rule. 

Many caves were also used as shelters during the Second World War and remained in use as stables until the end of the 20th century.

Managed by the Morgantina and Villa del Casale Archaeological Park, this site lies on one of the hills forming the basin of Lake Pergusa. It contains evidence of a large Hellenised indigenous settlement that existed from the Copper Age to the Classical period. A vast sacred temenos opens onto a breathtaking landscape that stretches across much of the island.