Capo Tirone and the Bruttian tombs

Capo Tirone is the headland of Belvedere Marittimo’s Marina, and beneath its houses sleeps the oldest history of the coast. In 1956, during building works, the contents of several Bruttian tombs of the 4th–3rd century BC came to light: a terracotta necklace, a circular bronze mirror, grave goods of female burials, and pottery of imitation or colonial production that documents exchanges between the Bruttian community and the Greek world. In the same years, digging for the hamlet’s church, another female burial surfaced with objects of the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic ages.

On the Cotura plain, around the headland, works for the Museo del mare uncovered a Roman villa d’otium of the imperial age; coins bearing the image of Augustus had already been found there in the 17th century, and the seabed has yielded a wine amphora. The discoveries continue inland: the Pantana tomb with a red-figure krater (a satyr seated on a rock and a female figure), the Hellenistic farm of Sant’Ianni, the Roman wine press of San Giorgio and the villa of the 1st–3rd century AD towards Quattromani. The original finds are at the Civic Museum of Cosenza, in the stores of the Reggio Calabria museum and at Sibari; reproductions can be seen at Belvedere’s Museo della Memoria Storica.