[EN] In Spring 2018, a second archaeological campaign (supported and funded by Bona Furtuna LLC) was carried out in the rural site of Contrada Castro (Corleone, Palermo). The main aim was to investigate a building just partially excavated in 2017. The results of this excavation confirmed the sequence, which starts from the late archaic/classical period and then continues with a new settlement from the Byzantine to the Islamic period. Over the collapse layers of some stone structures, not entirely investigated, of the late 6th-5th c. BC a probable area for perinatal burials was created during the 7th-early/mid-8th c. AD. This marginal cemetery area was replaced by a rectangular building for craft activities for pottery production. In fact, in the first phase of this building two pottery kilns were associated with large amounts of productive wastes. The production activities were relatively brief, and one of the kilns was probably reused as an oven. Radiocarbon dating confirmed the use of this building from the late 8th c. AD to the 9th c. AD when it was apparently abandoned: there are no signs of fire or violent destruction. During the 10th c. AD this building was no longer visible and new wall was built with a completely different orientation. The Islamic occupation, covering the entire 10th and 11th c. AD, was heavily damaged by post-abandonment activities of spoliation of stone and agro-pastoral practices that occurred during the last century.

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