Le arule nella Sicilia di età ellenistica: il caso di Finziade

Arulae are terracotta portable cult objects used to perform typical Hellenistic rituals in Sicily and the Mediterranean. These artefacts which are found above all in houses, but also in sanctuaries. Today such terracotta objects are rarely studied. In the Hellenistic period they had a cylindrical form and were done on a lathe. Even though these artefacts were found in many Sicilian residential contexts of the 3rd and 1st centuries B. C., information relating to their use and function is very minimal. According to their form and dimension, arulae are similar to arulae- thymiateria, terracotta incense burners whose base held some burning coals used to burn incenses during the sacred rituals. One of the few Sicilian cities of the Hellenistic period in which many fragments of arulae were found is Finziade. There, in each house, the highest number of fragments of arulae and arulaethymiateria comes from the sacellum domesticum, a room used for the domestic rituals. Cylindrical arulae similar to those of Finziade, sometimes with the same diameter and decoration, were also discovered in the Hellenistic Sicilian cities Gela, Heraclea Minoa, Agrigento, Kamarina, Apollonia, Messina, Morgantina and Syracuse.