TOWERS, URNS AND CASTLETS. HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OF ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF WATER SUPPLY AND CONVEYANCE IN PALERMO

The water flowing from the tap of our homes accounts for the final step of a long and complicated route beaten by time and man.
The traces that water has left and continues to let in the natural environment and in social fields are indelible, as well as signs left by man, testimonies that the time preserves and history delivered to us and which together form a dense texture that overlaps the physical layout of the environment, integrating and modifying it1. Great works, monuments universally recognized as masterpieces of the mind and of human hands, but also lesser works, everyday artifacts, isolated real estate that make up the elements of a wider and complex organization of settlement phenomena; tiles of a mosaic rich in nuances and reflections, the result of a long process of historical stratification.
Towers, castles, churches, sanctuaries, villas, belong to the category of isolated works but also houses, farms, ranches and not least the artifacts for water: water mills, aqueducts, water mill, water troughs, water towers, express the relevance of this precious liquid. This is the basic element of many vital processes and is the essential component of the Earth and man2. Motore movens of many human activities and of the birth and development of the greatest civilizations.