Seeing Sicily: Puppet Perspective
The joy and anticipation I feel on the first bus ride to Aidone are paralleled only by my first bus ride out of Aidone. I love archeology and I adore the town but, as many of my predecessors on the American Excavations at Morgantina: Contrada Agnese Project blog have attested, short weekend breaks from the field feel incredible. They have been the source of some of my favorite memories, bonding with new friends and exploring and enjoying the rest of Sicily. During the first weekend of my first season in the Summer of 2023, I remember looking at my new travel buddies, laughing in disbelief as we realized that we had only met four days ago and we were now swimming in Syracuse together.
“Archimedes was here!”
2023 AVP Crew in Syracuse on our First Weekend Together
More importantly, I remember my first visit to the Syracuse Puppet Museum. After a pleasant day wandering around Ortigia, I separated from my traveling buddies for a brief solo trip to the Museo Di Pupi. Puppets may sound random, but the local history of puppets in Sicily is ancient, as evidenced by the scene in Xenophon’s Symposium when Socrates and his companions are entertained by a Syracusan puppeteer. Unfortunately, Xenophon was an enemy of joy and described those who enjoy puppetry as “senseless.” (Xenophon, Symposium 4.55). As I learned upon my visit to the Syracuse Puppet Museum, it is only those who do not see the beauty of puppetry who are senseless.
A Beautiful Arrangement of Sicilian Puppets
To my friends and family, it comes as no surprise that a puppet museum would be top on my to-do list in any city. I have always been drawn to stop motion and animatronics: the labor-intensive crafts that populate the “uncanny valley.” I came to the puppet museum for creepy vibes, and it delivered full force. Entering the museum felt a lot like a box office, with a small counter and a velvet curtain blocking the entrance. I bought my ticket, stepped through the curtain, and suddenly felt the chilling sensation of hundreds of eyes.
I would recommend a visit to the Syracuse Puppet Museum based on vibes alone, but its true magic is in the careful storytelling and curation of the small museum. It focuses on the lives and accomplishments of two families of local puppeteers. I learned about how these puppet pioneers entertained working-class crowds through over a hundred years of social and political change in Sicily. Through weekly performances they told episodic stories that met the tastes of local audiences, capturing and reflecting predominant social and moral values. Each puppet preserves a piece of the extravagant performances and serves as an artifact of local history. Most importantly, they are windows into the lives of the artists who created them, artisans who went unrecognized during their lifetimes.
During that first visit, a museum label providing a quote from puppeteer Alfredo Vaccaro caught my eye. “I want my puppets in a museum, I do not want that they make the same end as that of others.” The label went on to explain that Vaccaro died before his dream of a museum was realized. To me, the museum was a funny sidequest during a weekend trip, but it represented a long-fought effort to preserve the history of an entire art form. Like many of my favorite things, the Syracuse Puppet Museum prompts conversations about what is considered art and what makes something a valued cultural heritage artifact. It also served as a reminder of the power that museums hold to preserve stories.
Epic Side Profile of a Beautiful Puppet
Reading Vaccaro’s quote made me reimagine the puppet museum in the same way that I understand the Archaeological Museum of Aidone. When I look at the Morgantina Dea, I remember all of the interconnected systems and individuals that shaped her trajectory, landing her back in Italy. These are the systems I study in and the people I connect with. Conversely, the puppet museum offered an entirely new world, featuring unfamiliar systems, individuals, and materials. It was both challenging and exciting for me to start envisioning them in the same way.
More Puppets
In the first weekend of the 2024 season, I was once again traveling, visiting Palermo with an almost entirely new group of friends. Of course, Palermo had its own puppet museum and of course, I was going. This time, pestering my friends to come with me. The museum in Palermo is much larger, offering more space for innovative museum design. We walked through a forest of two-dimensional trees that once served as set decoration. Together we faced the terrifying blank stares of hundreds of puppets and then bought matching tote bags at the gift shop. I loved Palermo’s delicious food, stunning architecture, and beautiful beaches, but the highlight for me was once again the puppet museum. Encountering the strange and creepy collection reignited my interest in Sicilian puppetry.
2024 AVP Crew with our Aforementioned Matching Tote Bags
Our weekend trips were a break from archaeology, but the puppet museums challenged me to think about material culture in a different way. While archeological material is often elevated to the realm of high art, it is easy to forget that the majority of the material that we deal with were once aspects of daily life, things that may have seemed trivial to save in antiquity. For me, enjoying archeology is finding beauty in the material's mundane humanity. The small stories behind coins, lamps, and even roof tiles turn them from meaningless metal and terracotta to something worth saving and studying. I love the puppets because I am captivated by the artisans who make them and the communities who enjoy them. Like all material culture, they are given life by personal stories. My memories of the puppets were given life by the people I enjoyed them with; buying souvenirs and sprinting to catch the bus back to Aidone made seeing Sicily all the more exciting.
2024 AVP Crew Proving that No One is Cooler than the Morgantinoi
Fellow archeologists, when you seek vibrant tales of Sicily's past, don't limit your search to the soil under your feet. Venture into the puppet museums and tell the puppets I said hi.
