The hill-top town of Aidone hosts a world-class archaeological museum containing treasures unearthed at Morgantina, an ancient Greek town down the road a stretch. Morgantina was founded in 850 BC, and over the next 400-600 years the settlement was destroyed and rebuilt until it was finally abandoned in 211 BC. Throughout the centuries, the citizens of Morgantina created (and then left for us to find) some extraordinary works of art. This emblem, which is attached to a bowl, represents Scylla, the sea monster from Greek mythology. The piece is embossed gilded silver. Scylla, and her counterpart Charybdis, “lived” along the Straights of Messina, Sicily–a narrow, treacherous stretch of sea between Italy’s peninsula and the island of Sicily that sailors dreaded to navigate.
