Lipari (; ) is a comune including six of seven islands of the Aeolian Islands (Lipari, Vulcano, Panarea, Stromboli, Filicudi and Alicudi) and it is located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the northern coast of Sicily, southern Italy; it is administratively part of the Metropolitan City of Messina. Its population is 12,821, but during the May to September tourist season, the total population may reach up to 20,000. It is also the name of the biggest island in the archipelago, where the main urban area of the comune is located.
Geography
Lipari Island is the largest of a chain of islands in a volcanic archipelago situated in between Vesuvius and Etna. The island has a surface area of 37.6 km2 and is 30 km from Sicily. Besides the main town, most of the year-round population resides in one of the four main villages: Pianoconte is almost due west across the island, Quattropani in the northwest, Acquacalda along the northern coast, whereas Canneto is on the eastern shore north of Lipari town. The highest point on the island is Monte Chirica at 602 m (1975 ft).
Geology
Geologists agree on the fact that Lipari (island) was created by a succession of four volcanic movements, the most important of which was the third one, presumably lasting from 20,000 BC to 13,000 BC. A further important phenomenon should have happened around 9000 BC. The last recorded eruptions occurred in the fifth century AD when airborne pumice, together with volcanic ash, covered the Roman villages of the island. The volcanoes are considered active, and steaming fumaroles and hydrothermal activity may still be seen. As a result of its volcanic origin, the island is covered with pumice and obsidian. Pumice mining has become a large industry on Lipari, and the pale pumice from Lipari is shipped worldwide.
History
Neolithic period
In Neolithic times Lipari was, much like Sardinia, one of the few centres of trading in obsidian, a hard black volcanic glass prized by Neolithic peoples for the extremely sharp cutting edges that can be obtained. Lipari's history is rich in incidents as witnessed by the recent retrievals of several necropoli and other archaeological sites. Humans seem to have inhabited the island already in 5000 BC, though a local legend gives the eponymous name Liparus to the leader of a people coming from Campania.
Bronze Age
In the early Bronze Age, at the end of the third millennium BC, new settlers of Aeolian origin came from Mycenaean Greece, giving their name to the islands. They had already settled in Metapontum in Italy and used the islands as outposts for controlling trading routes through the strait of Messina.
In the 13th century BC, the islands were settled by Ausinian peoples from the coasts of Campania, who introduced the myth of King Liparus from whom the town’s name derives.
Successive domestic buildings have been excavated on the acropolis dating from the 18th c. BC and underlying the ancient Roman town.
Late Bronze Age
In the Mycenaean Period, Lipari has yielded pottery from LHI to LHIII.
Iron Age
Lipari's continuous occupation may have been interrupted violently when in the late 9th century BC an Ausonian civilization site was burned and apparently not rebuilt. Many household objects have been retrieved from the charred site.
Greek and Roman periods
Greek colonists from Knidos arrived at Lipara ~580 BC after their first colonization attempt in Sicily failed and their leader, Pentathlos, was killed. They settled on the site of the village now known as Castello in Magna Graecia. The colony successfully fought the Etruscans for control of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
The town was initially concentrated upon the summit of the rock which played the role of acropolis, seat of religious cults and of public life, but in the course of the first century of its existence, an increase in the population necessitated an expansion into the area at the foot of the rocky slopes and on to the top of the Civita hill. A first city wall, built sometime in the 5th century BC was erected along outcrops at the bottom of the slopes of the rock, leaving outside the modern district of Diana, which was destined from the beginning to accommodate the city necropolis. A second city wall was built in the 4th century BC to enclose the new residential area bounded to the north and south by the river-beds of Santa Lucia and Ponte, which in ancient times ran into the two bays at the foot of the rock. The city wall ran near the two river-beds and then joined on to the Acropolis and the Civita hill. The mighty fortification, of which some traces are visible today in the district of Diana, divided the town from the necropolis.