The municipal territory of Carini is studded with numerous and important archaeological evidences datable between the Paleolithic Age and the Middle Ages. Such density and continuity of settlements was certainly caused by the possibility of carrying out varied economic activities, practicable between the fertile coastal plain, rich in water, and the western end of the Palermo Mountains, which delimit the plain and whose rocky walls, rich in caves and shelters, testify the oldest coastline. The favorable geographical location, combined with suitable morphological conditions, facilitated the passage of important road routes, which guaranteed the area a certain vitality (economic, political, cultural, religious etc.). In Roman times the Via Valeria and its variant per maritima loca had their junction point at Villagrazia di Carini, near the Early Christian catacombs. These were the cemetery of the late antique and medieval settlement of contrada San Nicola known even before 1873, when Giuseppe De Spuches, prince of Galati, found the famous mosaic, known, ever since then, by the name of “Galati”.
The settlement of St. Nicholas can be identified with the statio of “Hykkara “ along the Via Valeria, mentioned by the Itinerarium Antonini, a Roman-era itinerary, and with the bishopric mentioned in the epistles of Pope Gregory the Great. Connected to this important center was the site of Baglio di Carini, a landing place in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. The Arab geographers al-Muqqadasi (late 10th century) and al-Idrisi (12th century) most likely refer to the settlement in Contrada S. Nicola. The latter, in addition to extolling the fertile and water-rich land, locates the land (site of S. Nicola) at the foot of the fortress on which stands “a new fortress” (the castle).
A section of the Norman fortification, contemporary with al-Idrisi, was unearthed in 1998 during the restoration work of the castle of Carini. In an area immediately south of the Late Antique and Medieval settlement of San Nicola, from which the San Vincenzo valley separates it, rooms datable between the 10th and 11th centuries were found, to be connected to the settlement, mentioned by the Arabs al-Muqqadasi and al-Idrisi, and which were probably connected with the Islamic remains, set on the Late Antique site of San Nicola.
