Winter in Sicily/ Piazza Amerina

The villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina is another must see on your tour of Sicily. It was built in the first part of the 4th century, so about 800 years after the Greek temples. It contains the richest and largest collection of Roman mosaics in the world. It was preserved by a land slide that covered the entire villa in mud in the 12th century. The first major excavation of this site occurred in the 1950's.

We visited this site in 2009 while they were still doing some restoration. They finished all of the work in 2012 and it is a joy to see. This is the site of the "bikini girls" if you have seen pictures of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Romana_del_Casale

If you want to read more about the specifics of the Villa, check out the history in the link above.


Here are some photos that the Stoic One took.

We were told that the "Nike" shaped dark mosaics under the feet of the animals and people are not indeed trademarks of Nike but are used to denote movement. I wonder if the marketing people saw this before they developed their brand?

As you see the bikini girls are on a floor that was convered by another floor of mosaics, so it was the second floor. Why this was, no one knows. In modern times this mosaic is popular because it shows women participating in sports during Roman times. It is not clear what this room was used for. Interesting to speculate, but no one knows.