On mount Catalfano, 17 Km. east of Palermo, 5 minutes from the School, there is Solunto, a very suggestive archaeological site in a splendid panoramic position. The surviving vestiges are datable to the fourth century b.C. but the town was founded by the Phoenicians, four centuries before. It contains Punic, Hellenistic and Roman elements.
The only Punic testimony is an open-air altar where human and, then, animal sacrifices were made. There is a clear prevalence of Hellenistic forms in the city-plan was created by Ippodamo from Mileto.
Among the most important houses:, we have to mention the "casa di Leda" (Leda's house) which takes its name from the myth of Leda and the swan portrayed in one of the rooms and the so called "Gymnasium", an elegant peristyle with a double row of columns.

The excavations, started in 1826, brought to the light several testimonies:. We can find some of them are in a small but functional "Antiquarium" next to the ruins; the most important ones are in the "Archaeological Museum" in Palermo: two large (statues of  gods and two wonderful sixth and fifth century b.C. anthropoid stone sarcophagi.
Solunto is a very suggestive place where, each apparently insignificant stone is, actually, a little wedge of ancient history.