Christianity at the Frontiers: the case of Rometta (Sicily)

During the Late Antiquity, Christianity changes and expands the boundaries and the perspectives of the sacred: it is evident, for instance, in the "sacralization of the borders" by means of suburban sanctuaries or using the expression limina in the funerary epigraphy. The perception of a physical space held as sacred seems to be crystallized: in this way are to be explained some examples of continual use of the same spaces that remain sacred in different periods and cultures. The research on Rometta context may be connected to the conceptual category of the ‘border’, essential in the process of perception of the space and dynamics of identity. A case in point is that of Rometta, crucial place in the northeastern part of island, last frontier zone between the two main empires of Early Medieval Mediterranean (Byzantium and Islam), key reference point for the archaeology of Byzantine Sicily, place of last resistance to Islamic domination, when subdued after a desperate resistance in AD 965. Rometta is located along important road axes and passages from the fertile plains of central Sicily to the Nebrodi mountains; it is the last frontier of Byzantine culture in Sicily, as it is evidenced by the archaeological evidence related to the Byzantine church of “Santa Maria dei Cerei” (6th- 9th century AD), but also by the rock churches, one of which with several crosses carved in the rock, probably related to an early Christian community.