PANTELLERIA ISLAND

Italian Isola Di Pantelleria, Latin Cossyra, Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea between Sicily and Tunisia; it forms part of Trapani provincia, Sicily. Of volcanic origin, it rises to 2,743 feet (836 m) at the extinct crater of Magna Grande and has an area of 32 square miles (83 square km). The last eruption (underwater to the west of the island) took place in 1891, but hot mineral springs and fumaroles testify to continued volcanic activity. The island is fertile but lacks fresh water. A fortified Neolithic village (c. 3000 BC) has been excavated on the west coast, with remains of huts, pottery, and obsidian tools. To the southeast are tombs, known as sesi, similar to the nuraghi of Sardinia, comprising rough lava towers with sepulchral chambers in them. After a considerable interval, during which the island probably remained uninhabited, the Phoenicians established a trading station there in the 7th century BC. Later controlled by the Carthaginians, it was occupied by the Romans in 217 BC. Under the Roman Empire it served as a place of banishment. About AD 700 the Christian population was annihilated by the Arabs, from whom the island was taken by the Norman Roger II of Sicily in 1123. The Spanish Requesens family were princes of Pantelleria from 1311 until the town of Pantelleria was sacked by the Turks in 1553. The island's strategic situation in the narrow passage separating the eastern and western Mediterranean induced the Italian government of Benito Mussolini to fortify it as a base, from which Allied convoys were attacked in World War II. The installations and the town of Pantelleria were destroyed by intensive Allied air assault in 1943. The islanders mainly fish and farm, and sweet wine and raisins are exported. The chief town, Pantelleria, is on the northwest coast, on the sole harbour, where there is also a penal colony. Pop. (1991 prelim.) mun., 7,316.