Cava Porcaro is located in the southeast part of Comiso, not far from its urban center, which is about 5 km away. You can reach the municipality, and then move easily towards Cava Porcaro
The so-called "Roman road"
Most likely this stretch of road (renovated in the early 1900s) is what remains of a Byzantine road that connected the small village of "Comicio" with the farmhouses in the districts of San Leonardo, Sante Croci, Margitello and Castiglione. In fact, a pictorial representation of this road, which climbs above the town of Comiso, is depicted in an anonymous seventeenth-century painting located to the right of the chapel of the immaculate. On the other hand, many authoritative authors describe the roads, already existing in the period of Greek colonization, which connected Kasmene (on Mount Casale!) to Camarina, passing through Castiglione (1-2). In this regard, nothing prevents us from supposing that the name Comiso can derive (as among other things hypothesized by B. Pace) from the Greek Koμίζω (shelter)(3) precisely due to the fact that the natural shelters of Cava Porcaro housed, for the due rest after a day's walk, the Greek soldiers or wayfarers who from Syracuse they went to the plain of Gela. In fact, all the steep slopes located on the sides of the Porcaro torrent are dotted with natural caverns remodeled by man´s hand; a few hundred meters from the catacombs, on the opposite side, below the Aeneolithic village of Sante Croci, there are other caves which were later used as burial places by these populations.
Until some time ago the whole area was owned by private individuals but for almost 20 years it was acquired by the Municipality of Comiso (del. G.M n° 2559 of 12/30/1997) and therefore belongs to the whole community. However, very few are aware of the real environmental and cultural value that this site has for all of Comiso.
In the meantime, it should be specified that the site of Cava Porcara (1)(2) is located south-east of the town of Comiso and includes all that limestone plateau between the districts of Nollica, Sante Croci and Margitello, delimited by the river valleys of the Cucca and Porcaro (typical of the Iblei and called "cave"); in the central plateau of this site there are the nineteenth-century rural houses called Case Terranova.
Translated by Google •
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