Settlement of Abakainon

The area of Contrada Piano, known for its archaeological potential since the 16th century, was the subject of investigations conducted in the second half of the last century by Ryolo, Bernabò Brea, Villard, and Cavalier, who documented the presence of a Neolithic settlement, a pre-Hellenized Sicel settlement, a Greek-Hellenistic city, and finally, a Roman town recognize with the site of Abakainon/Abacaenum.

Approximately sixty years after the last investigations in Contrada Piano, the first archaeological excavation project (2019-2020), funded with municipal funds, followed shortly by a second excavation campaign (2022) carried out with the resources available in the budget chapter of the Sicilian Region, revealed a monumental structure from the Hellenistic-Roman period, likely a stoa (front porch) built with large walls of double curtain of squared blocks, laid in economic rows that preserve traces of ochre-colored plaster inside.

Running parallel to the eastern wall of the monument is a wide channel, perhaps an ambitus that serves as a terracing function and, at the same time, separates a part of the Greco-Roman settlement to the east from the public area to the west, identified as the agora/forum.

Thanks to the ongoing third excavation campaign, funded by the Municipality of Tripi and the acquisition of adjacent land parcels by the Municipal Administration, it has been possible to continue the archaeological investigation by expanding the excavation area to Provincial Road 115, obtaining further principal data on the stoa and the layout of the public area of Abakainon/Abacaenum.

The recent discovery of an imposing terracing wall (approximately 3 meters in height) made of stone blocks, parallel to the stoa, and the finding of some monolithic granite columns unearthed in the past during excavation works on Provincial Road, SP 115, identify this space as the agora/forum of Abakainon/Abacaenum.

The archaeological materials recovered in Contrada Piano during the three excavation campaigns, especially the coins and ceramics, attest to a habitation spanning a vast chronological range from the Greek period to the Spanish domination.