Biagio Pace, the Whitakers and the First Steps of Archaeological Investigation in Motya

Abstract

During his early archaeological investigations in Motya, Joseph Isaac Whitaker has sought the scientific collaboration of the young Biagio Pace. To both these scholars is due the beginning of modern research on the island and, in some respect, a new perspective in the study of Phoenician and Punic Sicily. In the first part of the paper, the phases of the relationship between Pace and the Whitaker family are retraced. The second part is devoted to Pace’s ideas, theories and assumptions about Phoenician colonization in the Mediterranean, with a special attention to the ideological and political elements involved in his historical reconstruction. In the Appendix, an excerpt of Biagio Pace’s Memoires, still unpublished, is edited with an English translation.