Evidence of Amber in Bronze Age Sicily: Local Sources and he Balkan-Mycenaean Connection

Amber artefacts found in prehistoric Sicily have been the subject of several studies in the last decade, the most systematic ones by C.W. Beck in 1993 and P. Szacki in 1999. These offer a most significant contribution to the problem of the identification of Sicilian amber or simetite, and to establishing the spectroscopic characteristics of the fossil resins, but little attention has been given to the archaeological context of these artefacts. There is a need for a comprehensive and systematic study of archaeological amber finds in Sicily, whether reported in the literature or stored in Museums and in private collections. Moreover, many artefacts in literature labelled as amber need to be correctly identified. Finally, the identification of Sicilian amber implies an accurate inventory of natural occurrences and related fossil resins deposited in Mineralogical Museums and classified as genuine simetite. An attempt to illuminate the evidence of the amber artefacts in the Sicily of the 2nd millennium BC imposes an interpretative process based on successive levels of investigation, starting from the status of the research.