Il Colosso del Kothon, Baal delle acque e del cielo: protezione divina e controllo delle risorse idriche a Mozia nel V secolo a.C.

Abstract

The statue of Baal at the center of the Kothon of Motya represents both the main deity of the Sacred
Area, and the symbol of the religious and political subject that ruled Motya at the mid- 6
th century BC.
The colossal statue was erected on a podium in the center of the sacred basin when the Sacred Area
was rebuilt in monumental features and was enclosed by the Temenos. This sculpture is a typical work
of the Cypro-Phoenician style of the second half of the 6th century BC., and it was imported from the
Levant. This masterpiece in that preeminent position played both a symbolic and a political role, as it
represents the physical, as well as ideological, acquisition of the Sacred Area of the Kothon by the
deity, and suggests the hegemony of a ruler of a priest-king, who shows his power in such evident forms.
The erection of a colossal statue of the tutelary deity of the Sacred Area of Motya is a part of a wider
urbanistic project that marks a clear change between the ancient colony of the 8th century BC and the
Phoenician polis of the 5th century BC, enrooted in the political, social, and cultural context of
Hellenized Sicily.