Polyphemus Cave
At the base of the height of the castle, on the west side, opens the Grotto di Polifemo. Tradition says that this was the home of the most famous among the Cyclopes and therefore the beach in front would have been the landing of Ulysses and his men. The historian Antonio Monitore also talks about this legend linked to the giants; in his work “Of Sicily sought in the most memorable things (Palermo 1743, sixth book, Caves and caves memorable of Sicily)” he writes: ” In Milazzo there are many large caves, others and deep; in particular there is one of immense size under the castle, where gigantic bones have been found. Domenico Bottone writes there are in Milazzo many caves that serve to mitigate the heat in summer time. And adds, that Milazzo is not too subject to’ damage of earthquakes, for the benefit of these caves; since for them easily svaporano underground fumes.” It is said that in antiquity, inside were found large piles of bones attributed to “cyclopes”.
The mythological appeal is due to the fact that the remains found were of considerable size and relevant to beings of great stature and robustness. This story was confirmed by the discovery of some gigantic skulls in other places of Sicily, which had a hole believed to be the housing of the cyclopean eye. Now we know that they were not human beings but dwarf elephants; the central opening was not the eye of the cyclops, but the cavity of the proboscis of the elephant. On the other hand, this myth could be based on the discovery in past times of bones of very tall men; the most recent was made in 1992 by the archaeological section of the Messina superintendence in the San Giovanni area, where two skeletons measuring 2.10 meters were discovered. Also the historian Francesco Perdichizzi speaks of the cave Polyphemus: “Under the Castle by Ponente there is a spacious and deep cave, capable of 100 men, where dust is made and salnitrium is made; and from the human bones of immense size that have already been found, it is conjectured that they were made of giants.
The Perdichizzi as well as remembering the cave for the myth of the “giants”, reports a historical note, writing that during the Spanish period the cave was used as a gunpowder factory. For this it was protected by a defensive bastion in the shape of an arrowhead. As proof of this, the Grotta Polifemo is referred to as “Pouvriere” in the print “Plan de Melazo”, a copper engraving made in Paris in 1719 by the Frenchman Nicolas de Fer (1640-1720). During the Napoleonic period, the British occupants converted it into a military prison. Il Piaggia claims that the cave was located “on the beach level”, but today access is by means of a ramped ramp. This would confirm the view that the cave was “reduced to a tenth of its original width by the cavatoi of stones that from 1879 to 1885, demolishing the largest part of the vault, in about 15 years of continuous work, filled it with soil to support the interior, elevating it from the road plan of the present “. To give further credit to this thesis also excavations of the archaeologist Luigi Bernabò Brea that I find Roman cocciame only over seven meters deep, under a thick layer of resulting material. The cave was altered during the Second World War: in 1943, the Military Engineers financed excavations to place artillery. Later it was used as a shelter for displaced persons. In 1955 it was used as a nightclub, until its definitive closure in the eighties.
Carmelo Isgrò Guida alla natura di Capo Milazzo, Milazzo 2016