Water was a big resource for these Phoenicians. They were seamen, they traveled across the Mediterranean and they needed to find fresh water at each stop along the sea route. For this reason, Mozia was a fundamentalist strategic point where to stop to continue the trip to Sardinia or to Spain, and especially because it was a place which had three springs. So, just aside the seashore, there were three major springs of fresh water directly connected with the phreatic aquifer, and this was a chance, a beautiful, chance for the Phoenicians. They could stop, they could supply their ships and continue the trip. So, this was the reason, because they chose this place to settle. As we have already seen, fresh water was the reason for landing in Mozia. And fresh water were also very precious, especially conspicuous fresh water, for setting a temple, a sacred place, which was actually the heart of the earliest community. We have been able to untangle and discover the earliest shrine which was erected by the pond of the Kothon, that is the earliest sacred lake at Mozia, around the beginning of the eighth century B.C. This earliest shrine was a rectangular chamber, a rectangular room, with a small chamber at the easternmost side of the room which actually followed the plan of some traditional religious architecture of the Levant of Phoenicia itself. We have one comparison which is very interesting: the temple of Sarepta, a very small shrine which has exactly the same shape and which has an altar at the end of the room like it was in Mozia in the adyton that is the sancta sanctorum. The smallest room which is devoted to the cult of the garden where the symbols of the god are concealed. So, in this case, in Mozia, we had an altar with an installation for performing libations, and we see that this temple actually has concealed a lot of materials of the early stages of Phoenician presence, such as the Red Slip and vessels arriving just from Sardinia. That means that Mozia was at a stop in the sea route to Sardinia back and forth from the Levant. So, you see here, these pits, these holes, which were cut in the bedrock and where some offerings, mostly animal bones and of course food, were deposited with the small vessels. So, these earlier finds testified to the earliest cult which was performed in the sacred area of the Koithon at Mozia. And here you have a plan, a drawing, of the old finds from this temple which is one of the few temples of the Mediterranean of the Phoenicians temple which has been excavated completely. So, now, we have a complete picture through four centuries and more or less four buildings which superimposed in this area. Different colors are the clue to different stratigraphic periods, that means epochs and datings. And we also use purple just to signify what is devoted to a cult activity. You see that there are many of such installations, such as podia, platforms, obelisks, stelas and other holes in the floor which are used to perform libations, to offer something, to buy something which is sacred and so on. So, it's a very distinguished religion with very special rites which have a little to do with what we will know in the future from the Greeks and Romans. This is something completely different which is connected to the Oriental tradition. That's why the Phoenicians had also this role of transmitting this way of performing religion. There are completely different habits that they had in Mozia. And we see here from a stratigraphic point of view one of the earliest finds. You see that underneath the earliest temple there is a vessels which was set into the foundation, and this gave us a clue for the dating at the beginning of the century of the structure. Just outside the temple, there was another shaped pit. This pit was full of discharged materials from the temple, especially these bowls. Bowls were used for toasting in the temple during religious rites, and then they were disregarded into these favissas, so, sacred pits which usually have a round or an oval shape. And you see that among other finds, there are some important dating shrouds such as the Euboean Late Geometric bowl, which has a comparison again inside and in the side on in the Levant. So, you see that there was this started a circulation also of a Greek pottery, but this was in the second step of life after this in the second half of the eighth century B.C. Another very interesting find from this temple, temple C5, are these crateroid amphorae. These are big vessels with a diameter of around 40 centimeters, and they were usually used as urn, urns in cemeteries in the Levant which were also transformed into simple craters for offerings semi-liquid food offered in the temples. So, we have two specimens found in the temple of Mozia. They have a very distinguished decoration made of bands with the bands, and the reason that the bands have a bichrome decoration which is black and red on a whitish slip. And here I show you the comparison from the homeland, such as Tiro or Rachidiyeh, which is near Tiro, which this typical cypriot circles which are another constant decoration on this kind of vessels. Of course, these small finds are very important for the archaeologists because they built up a network of changes of traditions, and they showed that they were sharing all together, I mean, the people in Cyprus, the people in the Levant, the people in Mozia, they were sharing something which was moving from the East to the West. And now, we give a glance to the old temple as it was possible to reconstruct it. So, starting from the earliest shrine, which is called the shrine C14 of stratum 9. Then we go in stratum 8 into temple C5. This temple is actually a temple because it consists of at least three main pieces, a courtyard which is the front courtyard with a sacred well, an obelisk, a libation hole, as you see two more stelas. Then there was a cella, which was actually the earliest shrine C14 with an aydton that is a sancta sanctorum, a room for the altar and for the mundus which is actually a funnel shaped installation for pouring sacred liquids in the underground. And then there was also a place for burning incense or other perfumes. Then there is a East Wing, the East Wing which is another place again with something erected with this kind of altar or platform. And then there were some small, very small pits in the floor for offering metal items. So you see it's quite variegated sacred place with different built-up sections and installations. Of course, one main focus of the area is the holy spring which is just outside the north west corner of the temple. This holy spring was pouring water into a pool, actually a pond, which was transformed into a kind of pool by building a quay on two sides of the pond. So, this suggests that there was a part of the rites which was performed into the sacred pool or along its borders. So, that's very interesting again. And also this building finds in the homeland a striking comparison, especially let's say the concept of the plan with this entrance, the entrance from one side, the one which is on the left in the foreground. And you see this comparison is in Sidon, and it was discovered in 2011 by an expedition of the British Museum. So, now in detail the altar in the adyton with the place for burning incense, and also the incense burner which was found over there, and also some offerings. In this case, we have these beads, these beautiful beads made of glass which were found in this layer, somewhat later, but more or less, they testify to the right. Again another area of this temple C5 is this East Wing in which they used to buy pieces of metals and these pieces of metals, also slags, were just to signify their relationship with the netherworld gods because this metal is chthonic metal which makes its relationship with this underground world. So, that's very interesting because the temple was dedicated to Baal but in his personality of Poseidon, that is, the one who rules waters underground and in the sea. So, again, a glimpse to the favissa which was just a side of the secret spring of the temple. The spring of the temple was, after the destruction of the city, was buried, throwing into it the stones and remains, the pillars which had been taken away from the temple ruins. So, that's why you find all these blocks into the spring. And there is also the favissa. The favissa had also many layers with destructed materials and offerings inside, including this very nice black figured dinos. It's a Corinthian vessel. Actually what is interesting in this case is that the vessel had been cut, just this shard with the horse was buried because the horse was the sacred animal of Baal, in this case, and especially of Poseidon. And with this gift we are now further later in the sixth century B.C. So, this is the end of this layer and the end of the earliest stage of the temple, temple C5.
