The Sanctuary of Motya: the Sacred Lake of the Phoenicians, Where Water Met the Sky
In the heart of the Stagnone Lagoon near Marsala, on the island of Motya (Mozia), lies one of the most extraordinary sacred places of the ancient Mediterranean. For more than a century, archaeologists believed that the famous Kothon was an inner harbor built by the Phoenicians.
The ports of Carthage were called Khoiton by the Greeks, (plural kotona), which means donut, because they were round. In Motia anyway the pool was rectangular, but when archeoloigcal excavations began, it was thought to be a port and was given the traditional name khoton.
Today, instead we know that this interpretation was mistaken and that it was a huge sacred area.
Thanks to the excavations carried out by Sapienza University of Rome, under the direction of Professor Lorenzo Nigro, in collaboration with the Regional Superintendency for Cultural Heritage of Trapani, the history of the site has been completely rewritten.
“For a century, the Kothon of Motya was thought to be a harbor, but new excavations have dramatically changed our interpretation: it was a sacred pool at the center of a vast religious complex.”
The excavations, begun in 2010 and continuing for more than a decade, involved draining the entire basin—larger than an Olympic swimming pool—and revealed a truly remarkable reality.
From the second millennium, and increasingly from the first, Mediterranean civilizations began to unite from separate cultures and exchange trade. Coastal lagoons, such as Motya, Cagliari, and Carthage, river estuaries in Spain, protected places near the sea. Places with indigenous populations with whom to interact, to get to know other people, while the Greeks, on the other hand, wanted to export democracy through exile. The Phoenicians had no army and therefore traveled as traders. Every sea in Italy was invaded by seafarers, who intermingled with the locals. They were defeated by the Greeks, Romans, and Jews, but they greatly influenced their conquerors in religion, food, and culture.
Motya
Its Phoenician name, written in the Punic abjad is generally believed to derive from the Semitic root mṭr.
This Semitic root mṭr (מטר / mṭr) is very interesting because it belongs to a semantic field primarily related to rain, water falling from the sky, and fertility.
In Semitic languages, we find:
Phoenician-Punic: 𐤌𐤈𐤓 (mṭr) → “rain”
Biblical Hebrew: מָטָר (māṭār) → “rain,” “precipitation”For example, in Deuteronomy 11:14: yōreh ū-malqōsh (autumn and spring rain)
Aramaic: maṭrā → rain
Arabic: مَطَر (maṭar) → rain
It is a very ancient root of the Northwest Semitic group.
The name Motya may derive from the root mṭr, thus linking it to a meaning such as: “place of water”.
The Greeks called the island Motya (Μοτύα or Μοτύη) and later invented a myth explaining the name, claiming it derived from a woman named Motya who was connected to the legends of Heracles. The Romans adopted the Greek form as Motya, while today the island is known in Italian as Mozia (or Mothia) and in Sicilian as Mozzia. During the Middle Ages, Basilian monks renamed it San Pantaleo, the name it still officially bears today.
Motya was founded at the end of the 8th century BC by sailors and traders from eastern Phoenicia, almost certainly direct emissaries from the city of Tyre (in today’s Lebanon).
It served as a strategic port of call for Phoenician ships sailing to Spain and central Italy.
Over time, eastern Phoenicia fell under the control of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, losing contact with its western colonies.
The Phoenician colony of Carthage (located in modern-day Tunisia) grew to become an autonomous superpower, inheriting control of all the old Phoenician routes and cities in the western Mediterranean. From the 6th century BC, Motya entered the political and military orbit of Carthage. The inhabitants of Carthage were called “Punic” by the Romans (a Latin corruption of the word “Phoenicians”).
Under Carthaginian rule, Motya underwent a transformation: from a simple trading port, it became a powerful military fortress equipped with imposing walls to stem the expansion of the Greeks into Sicily.
Its prosperity came to a dramatic end in 397 BCE.
Motya was a city of the nouveau riche, they bought the ceramics of Athens to make themselves appear pompous, and it made the other Greek cities of Syracuse jealous.
Motya became the primary target of the Sicilian Greeks. In 397 BC, the tyrant Dionysius I of Syracuse besieged and razed the island in one of the bloodiest battles of antiquity.
Carthage, which was supposed to defend Motya, in the end was also annoyed by the wealth of Motya, and deliberatly waited too long to intervene, so Motya was completely destroyed.
The surviving Motyans, supported by Carthage, did not rebuild the island but moved to the mainland opposite, founding the city of Lilybaeum (modern-day Marsala).
Only in the eighteenth century was the ancient city rediscovered, and systematic archaeological excavations have since revealed an exceptionally well-preserved Phoenician urban landscape.
A Sacred Lake, Not a Harbor
Contrary to what had long been believed, the Kothon was not connected to the sea.
Instead, the basin was fed by natural freshwater springs emerging from an underground aquifer. Geological investigations demonstrated that the very same spring also supplied the sacred well of the adjacent temple through a carefully engineered underground hydraulic system.
This discovery completely changes the meaning of the monument.
Around the sacred basin archaeologists uncovered:
the great Temple of Baal Hammon;
additional sacred buildings like the temples of the god Melqart (Sanctuary of Cappiddazzu) and the goddes Astarte;
votive stelae;
altars;
ritual offerings;
and a pedestal placed at the center of the pool, which most likely supported a monumental statue of Baal Hammon.
Together, these discoveries demonstrate that the Kothon formed the heart of one of the largest Phoenician sanctuaries ever discovered, one of the most important religious complexes of the pre-Classical Mediterranean.
Decades after the defeat of Motya by the Syracusans, the great basin was transformed into a ship repair yard by the inhabitants of the new city of Lylibeum.
The Phoenician Pantheon of Gods
Baal Hammon
His name probably means:
“Lord of the Sun”.
Baal means “Supreme Lord” and the Semitic root ḥmm (חמם) meansto be hot; to warm;
heat; burning sun.
He was associated with fertility; agricultural cycle; time;generating power.
The Greeks often identified him with Kronos.
A copy of the statue of Baal has been placed back in the center of the pool, and is the true pivot and energy center of the sacred area.
It was not a decorative statue in the center of the pool, but the God who was the object of worship of the entire city.
Sacred rituals and offerings were performed around this statue; and the god Baal was awakened every morning with perfumes and incense.
The Phoenicians regulated births at specific times, like many ancient civilitation. Parents who conceived at the wrong times were forced to offer their newborn as a sacrifice to the god Baal, who was burned alive. Parents were not allowed to show any emotion.
Astarte
Astarte (Phoenician 𐤏𐤔𐤕𐤓𐤕, ʿAshtart). Her cult originated in the areas of: Lebanon; Syria; Canaan; Phoenician cities such as Tyre and Sidon.
She is linked to the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna among the Sumerians and
Ishtar among the Akkadians and Babylonians.
In fact, the name follows a linguistic line:
Inanna → Ishtar → Ashtart
Astarte was associated with: fertility; sexuality; motherhood; love; war; royalty; the planet Venus. She was called the luminous, Aglaia (Ἀγλαΐα).
ἀγλαός (aglaós) = shining, luminous, magnificent, glorious.
Ἀγλαΐα (Aglaía) = “the Shining One”, “the Radiant One”, “she who shines”.
Melqart, and the statue “Il giovane di Mozia”
Melqart, whose name means “King of the City,” was oiginally the patron deity of Tyre, and then became later the protector of the dinasty of the kings in Motya.
He was the God of the sea, trade, colonial expansion, and monarchy.
Phoenician navigators spread his cult throughout the Mediterranean, and the Greeks later identified him with Heracles (Hercules).
At the begining Motya was ruled by some judges (Sufeti).
The Sufets (from the Phoenician šōfeṭ, plural šōfeṭīm) were the highest civil magistrates of the Phoenician cities like Carthage. The term literally means “judge”, from the same Semitic root Š-P-Ṭ, from which the Hebrew shofet (שופט), the “judge” of the Book of Judges in the Bible, also derives.
In the first centuries of its foundation (8th-7th century BC) Motya was probably governed by an elite of mercantile and priestly families from Tyre, rather than by suphets in the Carthaginian sense of the term.
From the 6th century BC, when Carthage became the main Phoenician power in the West, Motya entered its political sphere. From that moment it is very likely that it was administered by two suphets, on the Carthaginian model, supported by a council of elders and religious authorities.
Later, following the example of the Greeks, who had a tyrant, as in Syracuse, Motya also began to have a single ruler, a main king or tyrant, who showed off his wealth by commissioning the amazing statue of Melqart, the god protector of his royal family lineage, from a Greek artist. This statue was made with the best marble from Paros, and was placed in the most important temple in the city, the Cappiddazzu Sancturay.
Parian marble is one of the most prized marbles of antiquity, quarried on the Greek island of Paros (Paros) in the Cyclades. It was considered, along with Pentelic marble from Athens, the most noble material for Greek sculpture.
Parian marble is famous for its pure whiteness, almost free of veins, its extremely fine grain, allowing for extremely delicate details and its slight translucency, allowing light to penetrate a few millimeters into the stone, giving the skin of statues an almost lifelike appearance. This is why sculptors preferred it for depicting the human body.
The statue of Melqart found in Motya represents the god Melqart/Hercules, when at the end of his labors he is finally admitted to be one of the gods. He enters in apothesis (triumph) on a chariot like a charioteer into the divine pantheon.
This incredible statue demonstrates the skill of the Phoenicians, who used the art of their enemies to create relationships and cultural dialogue and showcase their power and wealth.
Living Water: The Origin of Creation
For the Phoenicians, underground water possessed profound cosmological significance.
According to their beliefs, the world and human civilization originated from the primordial waters flowing beneath the earth.
The sacred basin was deliberately supplied by natural springs, and it was not merely a reservoir but a symbolic representation of creation itself.
The god Baal, whose name simply means “Lord,” was the deity of rain, fertility, storms, and the renewal of nature. The freshwater rising from beneath the earth embodied his life-giving power.
It is therefore likely that the Kothon hosted ritual ablutions, purification ceremonies, and sacred processions, much like those documented in many sanctuaries throughout the ancient Near East.
Sicily’s Hidden Freshwater
The presence of freshwater so close to the sea is not unusual.
Along much of western Sicily, groundwater lies remarkably close to sea level.
Rainwater falling inland slowly filters through permeable limestone and sandstone formations, creating large freshwater lenses. Because freshwater is less dense than seawater, it floats above the saltwater and often emerges naturally along the coast, as in the case of the other famous stream Arethusa, in Siracusa.
The Phoenicians understood these hydrogeological processes perfectly and incorporated them into the design of their sacred architecture.
A Sanctuary Aligned with the Stars
The most fascinating discovery concerns astronomy.
Research has shown that the entire sacred complex was carefully aligned with significant astronomical events.
The Temple of Baal → Orion (Baal)
The main temple is oriented toward the rising of the Orion constellation at the winter solstice.
For the Phoenicians, Orion was identified with Baal, the great god of the sky, storms, and fertility.
When Orion reappeared at dawn in the winter, he heralded the renewal of the agricultural year and the return of the rainy season.
This explains why the temple faces precisely in that direction.
During the excavations, archaeologists even recovered a remarkable bronze pointer, probably belonging to a navigational instrument or an early astronomical device.
The perfectly calm surface of the water was used as an astronomical mirror.
The water reflects the sky, eliminating some of the glare from the horizon, and allows for precise observation of the rising of the stars, of their first appearance (heliacal rising); of the solstices and the equinoxes.
It would therefore not only be a ritual pool, but also an astronomical instrument.
Reflecting the night sky, the sacred pool could have allowed priests to observe with remarkable precision the movements of stars, the solstices, and the equinoxes, all of which played a fundamental role in determining both religious festivals and maritime activities.
The Sanctuary of the Holy Waters
Another cult building discovered close to the Kothon pool, was characterized by complex hydraulic structures and areas dedicated to animal sacrifices. It served for rituals linked to the underground springs of fresh water that fed the basin.
The Temple (Sacellum) of Astarte
The temple was rebuilt in the 5th century BC. During reconstruction, it was rotated so that the entrance faced the sacred spring and the back faced Mount Eryx, the great sanctuary of Astarte (Venus Erycina).
Mount Eryx is the ancient name for Mount Erice, in western Sicily. The current medieval village of Erice stands on its summit, about 750 meters above sea level, overlooking the sea above Trapani.
It is about 12-15 km from the Kothon of Motya as the crow flies and is perfectly visible on clear days.
For the Phoenicians and later the Carthaginians, it was one of the most sacred places in the Mediterranean, because it housed the great Sanctuary of Astarte, goddess of fertility, love, and navigation. When the Romans conquered Sicily, they identified Astarte with Venus, and the temple became known as the Temple of Venus Erycina.
The orientation of the Temple of Astarte of Motya toward Mount Eryx was probably no coincidence: it connected two important sanctuaries of the same goddess, creating a sort of “sacred axis” between the island and the mountain.
Here, the orientation seems to be primarily sacred and geographical, rather than stellar.
Sanctuary of Cappiddazzu (Temple of Melquart)
“Cappiddazzu” in Sicilian means “large hat” with a wide brim, a term historically used by locals for the area, due to the shape of the wall remains emerging from the ground
Excavations revealed sacrificial pits containing the bones of sheep and cattle, ancient wells, altars, and the remains of several successive temple buildings spanning centuries of Phoenician occupation.
When the Syracusans destroyed Motya in 397 BC, the sanctuary was partially rebuilt. During the Byzantine era, a Christian basilica even arose on its ruins, demonstrating how the sacred nature of this place remained intact for millennia.
Tophet
The northern coast preserves the famous Tophet, one of the most important Phoenician sanctuaries in the western Mediterranean. Here archaeologists discovered hundreds of funerary urns, stelae, altars, and cremated human remains. Tophets was a places where ritual child sacrifices were performed (usually the old first child, that was very precious for the family).
The term tophet likely derives from the biblical Hebrew תֹּפֶת (Tophet), a place near Jerusalem associated with sacrifices in the context of biblical texts.
Archaeologists today use the term to indicate a particular type of Phoenician-Punic sanctuary:
an open-air sacred area; often near the city walls; with votive steles, altars and buried urns containing cremated remains.
The most famous are:
the Tophet of Carthage;
that of Motya in Sicily;
that of Tharros in Sardinia;
that of Sulcis in Sardinia.
Several stelae appear to be oriented toward specific points on the horizon where important stars rose or set and they were used probably as a calendar for the main astronomical events.
Numerous urns have been found in Motya containing, burned bones and ashes; small animal remains, and votive objects.
The procedure was probably the Cremation:
The body was burned on a ritual pyre. The remains bones were collected and placed in a terracotta vessel.cThe urn was buried in the grounds of the Tophet. Then a stele with inscriptions or sacred symbols was placed on top of the urn.
Greek and Roman authors recount that the Phoenicians and Carthaginians sacrificed children to the deities Baal Hammon and Tanit.
The most famous account is that of Diodorus Siculus, who describes Carthage sacrificing children of noble families during times of crisis.
According to this interpretation, the child was an offering to the god;
the sacrifice served to obtain protection, victory, or fertility.
In ancient time, the firstborn had enormous symbolic value.
What is most precious to man is also the most precious offering to the deity. This principle exists in many ancient cultures.
This is a common ritual even in the Bible itself. Here we find finally the theme of the redemption of the firstborn.
The firstborn son symbolically belongs to God; he is then “redeemed” through an offering. So the theme was not foreign to the ancient Semitic world.
These alignments demonstrate the Phoenicians’ sophisticated understanding of the heavens—knowledge that was essential both for navigation and for regulating the religious calendar.
The circle of the temenos (walls)
The temenos (τέμενος) the sacred walls were a large circular enclosure aoround the sacred area. In this way the sacred areas with its temples and the pool seems to represent a sort of microcosm.
In the center: the statue of Baal; the spring water; the reflected sky.
Around: the temples; the altars; the stelae.
It is a representation of the universe according to Phoenician cosmology: primordial water at the center, the god who governs the sky, and the ordered cosmos all around.
The stars of navigation
The Phoenicians were the greatest navigators in the Mediterranean. We know from Greek sources that they mainly used:
Orion, for winter navigation;
Sirius;
the Pleiades;
Ursa Minor, whose pole was much closer to the celestial north than Ursa Major. The Greeks, in fact, called Ursa Minor “the Phoenician” (Phoinikē), precisely because it was the favorite constellation of Phoenician navigators.
It is therefore plausible that the sanctuary was also designed as a place of observation of the sky, useful for navigation.
Three Springs and a Sacred Hydraulic System
Far from being connected to the sea, the Kothon was continuously supplied by three natural freshwater springs, emerging from the shallow aquifers of western Sicily.
The sacred basin was also intimately connected to the nearby Temple of Baal, a building that bears striking similarities to the Temple of Astarte at Kition, on the island of Cyprus, one of the most important Phoenician sanctuaries in the eastern Mediterranean.
Geological investigations have demonstrated that the temple’s sacred well received freshwater from the very same spring that filled the Kothon. The two monuments were therefore linked by a carefully designed underground hydraulic system that transformed water into the central element of the sanctuary’s sacred architecture.
For the Phoenicians, underground waters represented the source of life, fertility, and the creation of the cosmos itself. Allowing the same living water to emerge both within the temple and in the great sacred pool symbolized the connection between the underworld—the realm of primordial forces—and the sanctuary dedicated to Baal, the god of rain, fertility, and the renewal of nature.
Where Earth and Sky Became One
The sacred area of Motya represents one of the finest expressions of Phoenician spirituality.
The living water rising from the depths of the earth and the heavens reflected upon its tranquil surface symbolically united the two great principles of the cosmos: the subterranean world, source of life, and the celestial realm, home of the gods and guide of navigators.
It was a place where geology, astronomy, architecture, and religion merged into a single vision of the universe.
Standing today beside this extraordinary body of water, surrounded by the silence of the Stagnone Lagoon, one realizes that the Phoenicians built a representation of the cosmos itself—a meeting place between the springs of the earth and the stars of the heavens, where humanity sought communion with the divine.
Giulia Maria – Voice of Plenty
