Page 212 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

crouching position in large, plump jars or cremated and placed in bucket-shaped jars

(situlae). Most eye-catching of all are the towering banks of amphorae, each 1m or so
high, dredged from shipwrecks under Capo Graziano (Filicudi), many still encrusted
with barnacles. There are also shelves of vases decorated in polychrome pastel hues
– showing sacrifices, bathing scenes, mythical encounters and ceremonies – with many

identified as those of an individual known as the Lipari Painter (300–270 BC) and his
pupils and rough contemporaries. Other poignant funerary goods include toy vases
and statuettes from the grave of a young girl, and delicate clay figurines of working
women using mortar and pestle or washing children in a little bath.

The Sezione Classica, however, is best known for the oldest and most complete
range of Greek theatrical masks in existence. Many are models, found in fourth-

century BC graves, and covering the gamut of Greek theatrical life from the tragedies
of Sophocles and Euripides to satyr plays and comedies. One room has a collection of
small terracottas grouped in theatrical scenes, while there are also statuettes
representing actual dancers and actors – nothing less than early Greek pin-ups of the
period’s top stars.

Sezione Preistorica

Set in the seventeenth-century bishop’s palace, the Sezione Preistorica traces the
early exploitation of obsidian, made into blades and exported all over the western
Mediterranean – glass cases contain mounds of shards, worked flints, adzes and

knives. Meanwhile, the pottery finds from ancient burial sites allowed archeologists
to follow the development of the various Aeolian cultures, as burial techniques
became gradually more sophisticated and grave goods more elaborate – as in the lid
of a mid-sixth-century BC bothros, or sacred repository of votive articles,
embellished with a reclining lion.

The rest of the museum

Other museum sections cover subjects as diverse as vulcanology and Aeolian
traditions and customs, while the Sezione Epigrafica contains a little garden of tombs
and engraved stones, and a room packed with more inscribed Greek and Roman

tombstones and stelae. Unless you’re really keen, though, there are diminishing returns
to be had from soldiering on to the bitter end.

Corso Vittorio Emanuele

The Corso Vittorio Emanuele runs the length of the lower town – it is closed to
traffic in summer during the evening passeggiata, when its cafés come into their own.
Most of the gift shops are found along here, but tourism has never completely
dominated life in Lipari, so among the carved obsidian trinkets, coral jewellery and

Etna postcards there are still shops selling screwdrivers, fishing tackle and goldfish,