Inside a tiny, four-square-meter cell carved into the walls of an old Sicilian hilltop fortress that was decimated by an earthquake back in 1693, researchers have uncovered centuries-old prison wall art. It was created by people with a lot of time on their hands and a sharp object to carve with.
As reported by Archaeology News Magazine, researchers from the Central Mediterranean Penal Heritage Project (CMPHP) used digital photogrammetry to photograph the walls of Noto Antica. They produced the first full 3D record of the castle prison’s interior. Etched onto the walls, they found a mishmash of errant thoughts and mortal fears.
But also, games!
What Ancient Sicilian Prison Graffiti Tells Us About Prisoners’ Games and Fears
The team documented five repeating rectangular carvings that appear to be boards for Nine Men’s Morris, a strategy game played across Europe for centuries. Think of it like a more complicated version of tic-tac-toe.
The multiple boards suggest the cell crammed ten or more inmates inside, meaning there were plenty of potential playmates around for a quick game and potentially a proper stabbing if they lost.
Researchers also found a set of nautically-themed engravings, some of them so detailed that you can make out lateen sails, low hulls, and a row of oars. In the 16th and 17th centuries, those oars were powered by thousands of enslaved people, criminals, and debtors.
The researchers believe that for the prisoners, carving these ships might have been a way to document, possibly even emotionally process, the trauma of being enslaved and forced into backbreaking work on one such boat.
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