For a century it was thought that an artificial lake in Motya, an ancient city on an island off the coast of Sicily, was a military harbour similar to one in the nearby Phoenician city of Carthage. But new analysis has revealed it was a sacred pool at the centre of a huge religious compound.

The basin was first constructed around 550 BC, when the ancient island city was rebuilt after an attack by Rome’s ancient rival Carthage. When it was discovered in the 1920s, centuries after first being built, archeologists concluded it was an artificial harbour because of its structural similarity to a military port in Carthage.