Paolo Bernardini

The hill of Muru Mannu occupies the northern sector of the city of Tharros. It is affected by a stratigraphy documenting settlement phases ranging from the Middle Bronze Age to the Byzantine Age. The settlement of round huts arranged around a nuraghe was partially used by the Phoenicians for the creation of the tophet from 620 BC. The whole area undergoes radical changes in the Carthaginian period with the renovation of the tophet and the impressive fortifications that were renovated during the Late Republican period. Between the second and the third centuries AD, the top of the hill is affected by the installation of a circular structure recognized as an amphitheater. Here , in a sector of the cavea, a research of the School of Specialization in Archaeological Heritage of the University of Sassari in 2013 has started. The objective of the survey, just begun, is to check the exact date of construction of the amphitheater and its possible overlap with the previous levels of tophet and protohistoric settlement . The data collected so far seem encouraging: it seems to specify a terminus post quem for the construction of the amphitheater between the late second and the third centuries AD while fragments of urns, Phoenician and Punic amphorae and a fragment of a mask suggests the probable existence of the remains of the sanctuary below the amphitheater.

Othoca (Santa Giusta) was inhabited by indigenous communities whose villages were arranged around a nuraghe perched on the hill of the Basilica in the Late Bronze and the Early Iron Age. Into this place came the Phoenicians around 750 BC; the resulting “mixed” community gave rise to an urban center around the last quarter of the seventh c. B.C. Thanks to research conducted between 1980 and 1990 it is possible to follow the history of the center from the archaic period up to the Hellenistic and Roman phase: it was affected by the geo- environmental factors typical of the area of a lagoon. The geomorphological analysis today shows the physical appearance of the habitat of Othoca more responsive to the old situation: a large sea bay with some small islands located upon little reliefs. The Postgraduate School of Archaeological Heritage of the University of Sassari launched in 2013 a survey and excavation in the neighborhood of Is Olionis of Santa Giusta, within the precincts of the ancient Phoenician and Punic city. The first evidence is the discovery of a large wall built between the eighth and seventh c. B.C.; unfortunately modern upheavals have destroyed the ancient stratigraphy at this point, but it is possible that in the future new research are able to recover significant remains of the archaic settlement.