The Mahdi Times The Mahdi Times July 2014 | Page 93

One of the typical ceramic artifacts they
made looked like this, and people in
Sicily still make them today:

The baths at Cefala Diana, just south of
Palermo, were built by the Moors and
look like this:

A “Moors Head” vase from Caltagirone;
apparently the Africans in those days
liked using fruit as hair grips.

Their techniques later spread
throughout Italy and the style of pottery
was named Maiolica. It is still a major
craft in Sicily, especially in Caltagirone,
the centre of the Moorish pottery
industry in Sicily, and Santo Stefano di
Camastra. These two small towns are
packed with hundreds of ceramics shops
in every street.

ARCHITECTURE: The legacy of
the architecture brought over from
Africa remains not only in the old
buildings that still stand in Sicily, but in
the architectural designs and buildings
technology that worked their way all
through Europe and even up to the
medieval cathedral builders of Great
Britain.

Ancient baths which still stand in the
middle of nowhere.

They were constantly refilled with water
from several natural springs. The spring
water surged at various different
temperatures, a different one for each of
the pools.
Palermo Cathedral, which the Africans
converted into a mosque, has some
Arabic inscriptions on its exterior and
examples of Islamic art.