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85-462: The cathedral has been destroyed and rebuilt several times because of earthquakes and eruptions of the nearby Mount Etna . It was originally constructed in 1078–1093, on the ruins of the ancient Roman Achillean Baths, by order of Roger I of Sicily , who had conquered the city from the Islamic emirate of Sicily . At the time it had the appearance of a fortified church ( ecclesia munita ). In 1169 it

170-567: A BBC News television crew, after magma exploded upon contact with snow. An eruption on 24 December 2018, following a dyke intrusion at shallow depth, spewed ash into the air, forcing the closure of airspace around Mount Etna. Two days later, a magnitude 4.9 earthquake shook the town of Fleri and surrounding towns and hamlets in the Province of Catania, damaging buildings and injuring four people. Beginning in February 2021, Mount Etna began

255-543: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in

340-514: A canvas of Saint Febronia of Nisibis by Borremans facing, on a pilaster, the tomb of the composer Vincenzo Bellini . Also on a pilaster between this aisle and the nave is the Baroque monument of Bishop Pietro Galletti . Also notable is the Chapel of St. Agatha. The apse dates back to the original 12th-century construction: it features a medieval mullioned window and a late-16th-century choir by

425-518: A height of 3,357 m, but was then surpassed by the Voragine crater after the summer 2024 eruptions. Etna covers an area of 1,190 km (459 sq mi) with a basal circumference of 140 km (87 miles). This makes it by far the largest of the three active volcanoes in Italy , being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius . Only Mount Teide on Tenerife in

510-421: A huge tsunami , which left its mark in several places in the eastern Mediterranean . The steep walls of the valley have suffered subsequent collapses on numerous occasions. The strata exposed in the valley walls provide an important and easily accessible record of Etna's eruptive history. The most recent collapse event at the summit of Etna is thought to have occurred about 2,000 years ago, forming what

595-477: A lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and

680-419: A lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in

765-610: A new artificial channel, far from Zafferana, and it would have taken months to re-establish a long lava tube. Shortly after the blasting, the rate of lava emission dropped, and during the remainder of the eruption (until 30 March 1993) the lava never advanced close to the town again. Following six years (1995–2001) of unusually intense activity at the four summit craters of Etna, the volcano produced its first flank eruption since 1991–1993 in July–August 2001. This eruption, which involved activity from seven distinct eruptive fissures mostly on

850-550: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment

935-608: A separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek . There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek

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1020-498: A series of explosive eruptions, which have had an impact on nearby villages and cities, with volcanic ash and rock falling as far away as Catania. As of 12 March 2021 , the volcano has erupted 11 times in three weeks. The eruptions have consistently sent ash clouds over 10 km (33,000 ft) into the air, closing Sicilian airports. There have been no reports of injuries. In February 2022 there were two eruptions. On 11 February 2022, at 6 pm, there were lava fountains from

1105-415: A slowly diminishing rate for 417 days, until 6 July 2009, making this the longest flank eruption of Etna since the 1991–1993 eruption that lasted 473 days. Previous eruptions, in 2001, 2002–2003, and 2004–2005 had lasted 3 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months, respectively. Lava flows advanced 6.5 km during the first few days of this eruption but thereafter stagnated at many minor distances from the vents; during

1190-630: A standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c.  300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as

1275-480: A vent on the eastern side of the Southeast Crater in mid-August 2007. On 4 September 2007, a major episode of lava fountaining occurred from the new vent on the east side of the Southeast Crater, also producing a plume of ash and scoriae which fell over the east flank of the volcano. A lava flow travelled about 4.5 km (2.8 mi) into the uninhabited Valle del Bove. This eruption was visible far into

1360-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and

1445-535: A zone known as Ripe della Naca. The village of Mascali , lying down-slope of the Ripe della Naca, was almost completely destroyed in two days. Only a church and a few surrounding buildings survived in the north part of the village, called Sant'Antonino or "il quartiere". During the last days of the eruption, the flow interrupted the Messina-Catania railway line and destroyed the train station of Mascali. The event

1530-407: Is Morgan le Fay, the rich underworld queendom of which she is the mistress is accessed not through a fiery grotto on the slopes of Etna, but through a 'fountain' (i.e., a spring ) – a circumstance more in keeping with Morgan's original watery, rather than fiery, associations, before her incorporation into the folklore of Sicily. Another Sicilian conception of the fairy realm or castle of Morgan le Fay

1615-570: Is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of

1700-455: Is accessed through a marble façade culminating in a wrought iron .... decorated with 10 bronze statues of saints. The parvise is separated from the cathedral square by a balustrade in white stone, featuring five large statues of saints in Carrara marble . The cathedral has a Latin cross groundplan, with a nave and two aisles. In the southern aisle are the baptistery and, at the first altar,

1785-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected

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1870-480: Is an accepted version of this page Mount Etna , or simply Etna ( Italian : Etna [ˈɛtna] or Mongibello [mondʒiˈbɛllo] ; Sicilian : Muncibbeḍḍu [mʊntʃɪbˈbɛɖɖʊ] or 'a Muntagna ; Latin : Aetna ; Ancient Greek : Αἴτνα and Αἴτνη ), is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily , Italy , in the Metropolitan City of Catania , between

1955-666: Is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to

2040-697: Is confusion between this eruption and an earthquake that devastated southeast Sicily (including Catania) 24 years later in 1693 . A study on the damage and fatalities caused by eruptions of Etna in historical times reveals that only 77 human deaths are attributable with certainty to eruptions of Etna, most recently in 1987 when two tourists were killed by a sudden explosion near the summit. Since 1750, seven of Etna's eruptions have had durations of more than 5 years, more than any other volcano except Vesuvius. As "Europe's most active volcano", eruptions occur frequently (with as many as 16 eruptions taking place in 2001). However, several eruptions of note have occurred over

2125-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in

2210-588: Is known as the Piano Caldera. This caldera has been almost entirely filled by subsequent lava eruptions but is still visible as a distinct break in the slope of the mountain near the base of the present-day summit cone. Mount Etna is moving towards the Mediterranean Sea at an average rate of 14 mm (0.55 in) per year, the massif sliding on an unconsolidated layer above the older sloping terrain. The first known record of eruption at Etna

2295-556: Is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c.  1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c.  1200–800 BC ), the Archaic or Epic period ( c.  800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c.  500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been

2380-554: Is that of Diodorus Siculus . In 396 BCE, an eruption of Etna reportedly thwarted the Carthaginians in their attempt to advance on Syracuse during the Second Sicilian War . A particularly violent explosive ( Plinian ) summit eruption occurred in 122 BCE, and caused heavy tephra falls to the southeast, including the town of Catania , where many roofs collapsed. To help with reconstruction after

2465-541: Is that the name is derived from the Phoenician word attuna meaning 'furnace' or 'chimney'. In Classical Greek , it is called Αἴτνη ( Aítnē ), a name given also to Catania and the city originally known as Inessa . In Latin it is called Aetna . In Arabic , it is called Jabal al-Nār ( جبل النار , 'the Mountain of Fire'). According to both Roman and Greek mythology, Vulcan / Hephaestus ,

2550-836: Is the Fata Morgana , an optical phenomenon common in the Strait of Messina . Eruptions of Etna follow multiple patterns. Most occur at the summit, where there are five distinct craters: the Northeast Crater, the Voragine, the Bocca Nuova, and two at the Southeast Crater Complex. Other eruptions occur on the flanks, which have more than 300 vents ranging in size from small holes in the ground to large craters hundreds of metres across. Summit eruptions can be highly explosive and spectacular but rarely threaten

2635-743: The Canary Islands surpasses it in the whole of the European–North-African region west of the Black Sea. In Greek mythology , the deadly monster Typhon was trapped under this mountain by Zeus , the god of the sky and thunder and king of gods, and the forges of Hephaestus were said also to be underneath it. Mount Etna is one of the world's most active volcanoes and is in an almost constant state of activity. The fertile volcanic soils produced from this activity support extensive agriculture , with vineyards and orchards spread across

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2720-759: The Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as the Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect

2805-608: The Neapolitan artist Scipione di Guido . At the end of the north transept is the Chapel of the Holy Crucifix, by Domenico Mazzola (1577). It houses the tombs of members of the Aragonese branch of Sicily, including Kings Frederick III and Louis , John of Randazzo , and Constance . The northern aisle has several 17th-century paintings of saints, including one by Guglielmo Borremans . Mount Etna This

2890-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)

2975-517: The 1970s Etna erupted vortex rings , one of the first recorded events of this type, which are extremely rare. This happened again in 2000. Video footage of 8 June 2000 event was captured. Another event occurred on 11 April 2013. Other similar events occurred during the summer of 2023 (see photo) and 2024. The borders of ten municipalities ( Adrano , Biancavilla , Belpasso , Bronte (from two sides), Castiglione di Sicilia , Maletto , Nicolosi , Randazzo , Sant'Alfio , Zafferana Etnea ) meet on

3060-487: The 1983 eruption; it has now been rebuilt. Following a slow and non-destructive lava outflow on the upper southeastern flank between September 2004 and March 2005, intense eruptions occurred at the Southeast Crater in July–December 2006. These were followed by four episodes of lava fountaining, again at the Southeast Crater, on 29 March, 11 April, 29 April and 7 May 2007. Ash emissions and Strombolian explosions started from

3145-505: The 20th century. Since 2000, Etna has had four flank eruptions – in 2001, 2002–2003, 2004–2005, and 2008–2009. Summit eruptions occurred in 2006, 2007–2008, January–April 2012, in July–October 2012, December 2018, and again in February 2021. Volcanic activity first took place at Etna about 500,000 years ago, with eruptions occurring beneath the sea off the ancient coastline of Sicily. About 300,000 years ago, volcanism began occurring to

3230-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):

3315-495: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from

3400-535: The Etna Observatory (built in the late 19th century), destroyed the first generation of the Etna cable-car, and seriously threatened several small villages on Etna's east flank. In March 1981, the town of Randazzo on the northwestern flank of Etna narrowly escaped destruction by unusually fast-moving lava flows. That eruption was remarkably similar to one in 1928 that destroyed Mascali. The 1991–1993 eruption saw

3485-663: The Latin phrase in monte Gyber ('within Etna') to describe the location of Arthur's kingdom. The Fada de Gibel of the Castle of Gibaldar (Fairy of Etna) appears in Jaufre , the only surviving Arthurian romance in the Occitan language , the composition of which is dated to between 1180 and 1230. However, in Jaufre , while it is clear from her name that the fairy queen in question

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3570-425: The Southeast Crater which became a single Strombolian eruption by 7 pm. Between 10 and 11 pm it had reached a height of almost 1,000 m and lava bombs were thrown at a considerable distance. Ash was blown west by the wind and then turned southeast. There was large lava flow in the western flank. On 19 February at 10.15 am there was an explosive eruption, again from the Southeast Crater, high lava fountains and lava flows,

3655-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has

3740-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in

3825-514: The cathedral dates from the work in 1711 of Gian Battista Vaccarini , who designed a new Baroque façade after the 1693 earthquake. It has three levels with Corinthian columns in granite, perhaps taken from the Roman Theatre of the city. All the orders are decorated with marble statues of Saint Agatha over the gate, Saint Euplius on the right and Saint Birillus on the left. The main door, in wood, has 32 sculpted plaques with episodes of

3910-438: The center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West

3995-643: The cities of Messina and Catania . It is located above the convergent plate margin between the African Plate and the Eurasian Plate . It is one of the tallest active volcanoes in Europe , and the tallest peak in Italy south of the Alps with a current height (September 2024) of 3,403 m (11,165 ft), though this varies with summit eruptions. For instance, in 2021 the southeastern crater reached

4080-583: The crater area at 2,920 m is accessible. Ferrovia Circumetnea – Round-Etna railway – is a narrow-gauge railway constructed between 1889 and 1895. It runs around the volcano in a 110-km long semi-circle starting in Catania and ending in Riposto 28 km north of Catania. There are two ski resorts on Etna: one at the Sapienza Refuge, with a chairlift and three ski lifts, and a smaller one on

4165-521: The devastating effects of the eruption, the Roman government exempted the population of Catania from paying taxes for ten years. The Roman poet Virgil gave what was probably a first-hand description of an eruption in the Aeneid . During the first 1500 years CE, many eruptions went unrecorded (or records have been lost); among the more significant are: (1) an eruption in about 1030 CE near Monte Ilice on

4250-615: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of

4335-400: The eruption continued, and lava surmounted the barriers, heading directly toward Zafferana. Engineers then decided to use explosives near the source of the lava flow, to disrupt a very efficient lava tube system through which the lava travelled for up to 7 km (4 mi) without losing significant heat or fluidity. The main explosion on 23 May 1992 destroyed the tube and forced the lava into

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4420-528: The fire'), one of the Latin names of the god Vulcan. Today, the name Mongibello is used for the area of Mount Etna containing the two central craters , and the craters located southeast and northeast of the volcanic cone . The name Mongibel is found in Arthurian Romance , as the name of the otherworld castle (or realm) of Morgan le Fay and her half-brother, King Arthur , localised at Etna, according to traditions concerning them derived from

4505-405: The following days, with an ash plume that reached 7 km (23,000 ft) in height that forced Catania airport to shut down for a few hours. Volcanic gas emissions from this volcano are measured by a multi-component gas analyzer system , which detects pre-eruptive degassing of rising magmas, improving prediction of volcanic activity . An eruption on 16 March 2017 injured 10 people, including

4590-695: The god of blacksmithing, had his forge under mount Etna. The volcano is also known as Muncibbeḍḍu in Sicilian and Mongibello in Italian, generally regarded as deriving from the Romance word monte / munti plus the Arabic word jabal ( جبل ), both meaning 'mountain'. According to another hypothesis, the term comes from the Latin Mulciber ( qui ignem mulcet , 'he who placates

4675-561: The historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from

4760-476: The historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to

4845-404: The inhabited areas around the volcano. In contrast, flank eruptions can occur down to a few hundred metres altitude , close to or even well within inhabited areas. Numerous villages and small towns lie around or on cones of past flank eruptions. Since the year AD 1600, at least 60 flank eruptions and countless summit eruptions have occurred; nearly half of these have happened since the start of

4930-604: The last century. A major eruption took place in June 1923, lasting from 6 June until 29 June. A large lava flow from an eruption in 1928 led to the destruction of a population centre for the first time since the 1669 eruption. The eruption started high on Etna's northeast flank on 2 November. Then new eruptive fissures opened at decreasing elevations down the flank of the volcano. The third and most vigorous of these fissures opened late on 4 November at an unusually low elevation, approximately 1,200 m (3,937 ft) above sea-level, in

5015-399: The last months of the eruption lava rarely advanced more than 1 km downslope. Through January 2011 to February 2012, the summit craters of Etna were the site of intense activity. Frequent eruptions and ash columns forced the authorities to shut down the Catania airport on several occasions. The July 2011 episode also endangered the Sapienza Refuge, the main tourist hub on the volcano, but

5100-463: The lava flow was successfully diverted. In 2014, a flank eruption started involving lava flows and strombolian eruptions. This was the first flank eruption since 2008–09. On 3 December 2015, an eruption occurred which climaxed between 03:20 and 04:10 local time. The Voragine crater exhibited a lava fountain which reached 1 km (3,300 ft) in height, with an ash plume which reached 3 km (9,800 ft) in height. The activity continued on

5185-561: The life and martyrdom of Saint Agatha, papal coats of arms and symbols of Christianity. The dome dates from 1802. The bell tower was originally erected in 1387, with a height of some 70 meters. In 1662 a clock was added, the structure reaching 90 meters. After the destruction of 1693 it was rebuilt, with the addition of a 7.5 t bell, the third largest in Italy after those in St. Peter's Basilica and in Milan Cathedral . The parvise

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5270-556: The longest of which went down the north-eastern flank towards the Bove Valley. On 29 May 2022 a sudden collapse of the Southeast Crater created a fracture on its northern flank at an elevation of circa 2,800 m (9,186 ft). A small lava flow emerged and headed in the direction of the Leone Valley, just above the much larger Bove Valley. It continued for three days and was accompanied by small and sporadic eruptions from two of

5355-497: The lower slopes of the mountain and the broad Plain of Catania to the south. Due to its history of recent activity and nearby population, Mount Etna has been designated a Decade Volcano by the United Nations . In June 2013, it was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites . One view is that the word Etna is from the Greek αἴθω ( aíthō ), meaning "I burn", through an iotacist pronunciation . Another view

5440-425: The lower southeast flank, which produced a lava flow that travelled about 10 km, reaching the sea north of Acireale; the villages of Santa Tecla and Stazzo are built on the broad delta built by this lava flow into the sea; (2) an eruption in about 1160 (or 1224), from a fissure at only 350–450 m (1,148–1,476 ft) elevation on the south-southeast flank near the village of Mascalucia, whose lava flow reached

5525-554: The many vents at the top of this crater. Etna erupted once again on 4 July 2024 causing the Catania Airport to close due to volcanic ash in the air. The airport reopened the next day. On August 14, 2024, Mt. Etna erupted violently sending an ash cloud 9.5km into the atmosphere. Catania Airport was forced to close the following day. The Global Volcanism Program has assigned a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) to all of Mount Etna's eruptions since January 1955: In

5610-434: The north, at Piano Provenzana near Linguaglossa , with three lifts and a chairlift. Sapienza Refuge was the finish of Stage 9 of the 2011 Giro d'Italia and Stage 4 of the 2017 Giro . Ancient Greek language Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It

5695-465: The north. Thousands of years ago, the eastern flank of the mountain experienced a catastrophic collapse, generating an enormous landslide in an event similar to that seen in the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens . The landslide left a large depression in the side of the volcano, known as 'Valle del Bove' (Valley of the Ox). Research published in 2006 suggested this occurred around 8,000 years ago, and caused

5780-508: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which

5865-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c.  1450 BC ) are in

5950-420: The plains of Sicily, ending the following morning between the hours of 5 to 7 a.m. local time. Catania-Fontanarossa Airport shut down operations during the night for safety precautions. An eruption on the morning of 13 May 2008, immediately to the east of Etna's summit craters was accompanied by a swarm of more than 200 earthquakes and significant ground deformation in the summit area. The eruption continued at

6035-466: The sea just to the north of Catania, in the area now occupied by the portion of the city named Ognina. Rabban Bar Sauma , a Chinese traveller to the West, recorded the eruption of Etna on 18 June 1287. The 1669 eruption , Etna's most destructive since 122 BCE, started on 11 March 1669 and produced lava flows that destroyed at least 10 villages on its southern flank before reaching the city walls of

6120-553: The south slope of the volcano, was well covered by the mass-media because it occurred at the height of the tourist season and numerous reporters and journalists were already in Italy to cover the G8 summit in Genoa . It also occurred close to one of the tourist areas on the volcano, and thus was easily accessible. Part of the "Etna Sud" tourist area, including the arrival station of the Etna cable car, were damaged by this eruption, which otherwise

6205-688: The southwest of the summit (centre top of the volcano), then activity moved towards the present centre 170,000 years ago. Eruptions at this time built up the first major volcanic edifice, forming a stratovolcano in alternating explosive and effusive eruptions. The growth of the mountain was occasionally interrupted by major eruptions, leading to the collapse of the summit to form calderas . From about 35,000 to 15,000 years ago, Etna experienced some highly explosive eruptions, generating large pyroclastic flows , which left extensive ignimbrite deposits. Ash from these eruptions has been found as far away as south of Rome 's border, 800 km (497 mi) to

6290-662: The stories told by the Breton conteurs who accompanied the Norman occupiers of Sicily. What were originally Welsh conceptions concerning a dwarf king of a paradisal , Celtic underworld became attached to the quasi-historic figure of Arthur as "Ruler of the Antipodes " and were then transplanted into a Sicilian milieu, by Bretons impressed by the already otherworldly associations of the great, volcanic mountain of their new home. Mediaevalist Roger Sherman Loomis quotes passages from

6375-452: The summit of Mount Etna, making this a multipoint of elevenfold complexity. Etna is one of Sicily's main tourist attractions, with thousands of visitors every year. The most common route is through the road leading to Sapienza Refuge ski area, lying at the south of the crater at elevation of 1,910 m. From the Refuge, a cableway runs uphill to an elevation of 2,500 m, from where

6460-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies

6545-572: The tourist station Piano Provenzana, on the northeastern flank of the volcano, and part of the tourist station "Etna Sud" around the Rifugio Sapienza on the south flank. Footage from the eruptions was recorded by Lucasfilm and integrated into the landscape of the planet Mustafar in the 2005 film Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith . The Rifugio Sapienza is near the site of a cable car station which had previously been destroyed in

6630-463: The town of Catania five weeks later, on 15 April. The lava was largely diverted by these walls into the sea to the south of the city, filling the harbour of Catania. A small portion of lava eventually broke through a fragile section of the city walls on the western side of Catania and destroyed a few buildings before stopping in the rear of the Benedictine monastery, without reaching the centre of

6715-431: The town of Zafferana threatened by a lava flow, but successful diversion efforts saved the town with the loss of only one building a few hundred metres from the town's margin. Initially, such efforts consisted of the construction of earth barriers built perpendicularly to the flow direction; it was hoped that the eruption would stop before the artificial basins created behind the barriers would be completely filled. Instead,

6800-451: The town. Contrary to widespread reports of up to 15,000 (or even 20,000) human fatalities caused by the lava, contemporaneous accounts written both in Italian and English mention no deaths related to the 1669 eruption (but give very precise figures of the number of buildings destroyed, the area of cultivated land lost, and the economic damage). Therefore, it is uncertain where the enormous number of fatalities can be attributed. One possibility

6885-454: The works of Gervase of Tilbury and Caesarius of Heisterbach (dating from the late twelfth century) featuring accounts of Arthur's returning of a lost horse which had strayed into his subterranean kingdom beneath Etna. Caesarius quotes as his authority for the story a certain canon Godescalcus of Bonn, who considered it a matter of historical fact of the time of Emperor Henry 's conquest of Sicily circa 1194. Caesarius employs in his account

6970-480: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,

7055-539: Was a rather modest-sized event by Etna standards. In 2002–2003, a much larger eruption threw up a huge column of ash that could easily be seen from space and fell as far away as Libya , 600 km (370 mi) south across the Mediterranean Sea . Seismic activity in this eruption caused the eastern flanks of the volcano to slip by up to two metres, and many houses on the flanks of the volcano experienced structural damage. The eruption also completely destroyed

7140-566: Was almost entirely destroyed by an earthquake , leaving only the apse area intact. Further damage was caused by a fire in 1169, but the most catastrophic event was the 1693 earthquake , which again left it mostly in ruins. It was subsequently rebuilt in Baroque style. Today, traces of the original Norman edifice include part of the transept, the two towers and the three semicircular apses, composed of large lava stones, most of them recovered from imperial Roman buildings. The current appearance of

7225-431: Was used by Benito Mussolini 's fascist regime for propaganda purposes, with the evacuation, aid, and rebuilding operations being presented as models of fascist planning. Mascali was rebuilt on a new site, and its church contains the Italian fascist symbol of the torch, placed above the statue of Jesus Christ . Other major 20th-century eruptions occurred in 1949, 1971, 1979, 1981, 1983 and 1991–1993. In 1971, lava buried

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