The ancient Phoenician and Punic colony of Tharros was established in the 7th century BC in the Sinis Peninsula, in an area already occupied by Nuragic populations (Depalmas and Melis, 2010; Usai, 2014). The exact location of the archaic settlement of Tharros is currently unknown and the oldest archaeological records come from the necropolis and from the tophet,
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the Punic sanctuary of children. Recent surveys conducted in the lagoon of Mistras, used as a naturally sheltered harbour, have documented the presence of an intensive trading area connected to the city of Tharros since almost the 7th century BC (Pascucci et al., 2018).
During the 6th century BC, Sardinia entered definitively in the sphere of influence of Carthage and Tharros probably with a leading role in the administrative and economic management of the Island, becoming itself ‘Carthage of Sardinia’ (Acquaro, 1995).
According to the importance assumed during the Punic Age, Tharros underwent various urban interventions such as the installation of a metallurgical handicraft next to the tophet in the northern district of the city and the construction or restoration of public buildings, like the so-called ‘monumental temple’ (Floris, 2015) and the city walls (Acquaro and Mezzolani, 1996).
After the Roman conquest of Sardinia in 238 BC, the residential quarters of the Punic city were preserved substantially unchanged (Marano, 2017) but urban layout of Tharros underwent to numerous transformations: the city walls and temples were renewed, streets were paved with basaltic slabs, large buildings typical of Romanization – such as the baths – were built (Acquaro and Mezzolani, 1996).
After a progressive decline in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages (5th–6th century AD), Tharros and the Sinis region were abandoned in the Middle Ages due to the raids of Saracens along the coastline (Spanu, 1998).
The ancient site of Tharros is unfortunately well known since the 17th century when the richness of the burial goods of the cemeteries of the city attracted the attention of treasure hunters. Even if some explorations of the cemeteries started in the 19th century, the first scientific survey was carried out in the so-called ‘southern necropolis’ of Capo San Marco by G. Spano around 1850s (Spano, 1851). The following years were characterized by a real ‘gold rush’ and by the wild looting of the necropolis, started by the excavations of Lord Vernon, and by the official explorations between 1853 and 1856 of G. Cara, the future Chief of the Royal Museum of Cagliari, which were followed by the illegal sale of most of the finds, only partially converged in the British Museum in London. At the end of the 19th century, between 1885 and 1886, new excavations were directed by the Royal Inspector of Antiquities F.
Nissardi, who provided an accurate topographic plan from the northern to the southern necropolis (Del Vais, 2006).
The urban area of Tharros was investigated between 1956 and 1964 by the Superintendent G. Pesce, who discovered most of the Punic-Roman city visible nowadays (Pesce, 1966;
Marano, 2014), and the tophet, located in the Northern district of the city, on the East side of
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Su Murru Mannu hill (Fariselli, 2015). In the second half of the 1960s the explorations were directed by F. Barreca, the future Superintendent, who excavated the so-called ‘temple of Demeter’ (Floris, 2016), and the fortifications of Su Murru Mannu (Acquaro and Mezzolani, 1996). From 1974 to 1996 the Northern area of the city, and specifically the tophet (Fariselli 2015) and the nearby metallurgical handicraft area (Del Vais, 2015), were investigated by the joint mission of the ‘Institute for the Phoenician and Punic Civilization of the National Research Centre (CNR)’, the Archaeological Superintendence of Cagliari and Oristano, and the University of Bologna (Acquaro et al., 1974-2000). This effort was directed in the first year by A. Ciasca, subsequently by E. Acquaro, and finally by M.T. Francisi.
The resumption of systematic investigations in the ‘southern necropolis’ took place between 2001 and 2004 by a joint mission of the Archaeological Superintendence and the University of Bologna in collaboration with the University of Cagliari (Acquaro et al., 2006;
Fariselli, 2008). The so-called ‘northern necropolis’, located in correspondence of the modern village of San Giovanni di Sinis, was the object of the excavations of the University of Cagliari directed by C. Del Vais from 2009 to 2013 (Del Vais and Fariselli, 2010a, 2010b;
Del Vais, 2013; Fariselli, 2013a). A new ongoing research project, which resumes the archaeological excavations in the ‘southern necropolis’ under the direction of A.C. Fariselli of the University of Bologna (Fariselli, 2014; Secci, 2016; Fariselli, 2017), has resulted in the discovery of numerous Punic burial chambers and pits carved in the rocky bank and the retrieval of a variety of burial goods.
5.1.3.1.1. The cemeteries of Tharros: an overview
As described above, the Phoenician and Punic city of Tharros was served by two cemeteries: a) the ‘northern necropolis’, situated inside the modern village of San Giovanni di Sinis (Del Vais and Fariselli, 2010a, 2010b; Del Vais, 2013; Fariselli, 2013a), and b) the
‘southern necropolis’, that is located on Capo San Marco area (Acquaro et al., 2006; Fariselli, 2008; Fariselli, 2014; Secci, 2016; Fariselli, 2017). Both cemeteries were used for the same chronological range, and archaeological investigations carried out to date have documented the presence of similar tomb types and burial practices.
In the first centuries since the foundation of the colony, in the ‘Archaic age’ (7th -6th centuries BC), the most common funerary practice was incineration, and primary and secondary depositions are both documented. In primary depositions, the dead’s body laid upon the funeral pyre situated inside of the elliptical-shaped pit. After the combustion, the
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funerary goods were set at the bottom of the pit beside the bones laid in anatomical position and the burnt wood. The pit was then filled up and closed with stone slabs (Del Vais and Fariselli, 2010; Del Vais and Fariselli, 2012). In secondary depositions, the dead was cremated in an ustrinum (Del Vais and Fariselli, 2012) and the bones collected and placed in sub-circular and small elliptic pits (Del Vais and Fariselli, 2010; Del Vais and Fariselli, 2012). Only in the ‘southern necropolis’ the grave seldom consisted of a lithic cyst (Del Vais, 2006). The skeletal remains were set on the bottom of the pit, more rarely in ceramic urns.
The human remains were accompanied by personal funeral equipment, such as jewellery, scarab-shaped seals, amulets, bronze weapons (Fariselli, 2013a), and in an almost standardized set of ritual vessels (Del Vais and Fariselli, 2010).
During the ‘Punic age’, in a period that some authors make it correspond with the Carthaginian military conquest of Sardinia, in the second half of the 6th century BC, according to the literary texts (although the degree of reliability of these sources is debated, see i.e. Krings, 2000), cremation ritual was replaced by inhumation (Bartoloni, 1981).
However, recent surveys have documented the use of the inhumation rite in archaic tombs, which can be chronologically placed between the end of the 7th and the beginning of the 6th century BC (Del Vais and Fariselli, 2010; Del Vais and Fariselli, 2012). In this period, new tomb types were introduced, such as rock-cut parallelepiped pits, variable in depth, and hypogea graves. The latter type was composed of a dromos, a rectangular entrance module with steps either continuous or carved along the sidewall, and a square funeral chamber (Fariselli, 2006; Del Vais and Fariselli, 2010).
In some cases, both in the hypogea and in the monumental-sized pit tombs, niches were dug in the rocky walls and little wells were made on the rocky floor (Secci, 2016). In the northern as well as in the southern necropolis some pits and hypogea show a relief decoration.
The motifs depicted are aniconic religious symbols: betyls are represented more frequently, but the lozenge and the so-called ‘bottle idol’ are also attested (Fariselli, 2006; Del Vais and Fariselli, 2010; Del Vais and Fariselli, 2012). The chambers were regularly closed with a slab of stone and the dromos filled with residual sandstone flakes from the excavation of the tomb (Fariselli, 2006). The pit tombs were closed by a lithic cover housed within a recess cut at the top of the rock faces. The cover usually consisted of several stone slabs placed side by side (Fariselli, 2006) or, more rarely, of a monolith with a double-sloping top and equipped with a small altar (Del Vais, 2013). The deceased were laid on the rocky floor of the tomb or inside a wooden sarcophagi or coffin, documented by the discovery of nails and split pins (Fariselli,
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2006), in supine position with their arms along the body or folded. The bodies were accompanied by ceramic vessels and objects of personal adornments, such as amulets, scarabs and golden or silver jewels (Fariselli et al., 2012; Fariselli, 2013a). The funerary landscape was characterized by the presence of cippi, stelae and small altars embedded in the ground to signal the burials (Del Vais, 2011; Del Vais, 2013).
In Roman Age, the cemeteries had a higher extent than in Punic age and occupied even the moat of the fortifications in the Northern slopes of Su Murru Mannu hill, the Southern slope of the San Giovanni hill, and the area around the early Christian church of San Giovanni (Acquaro and Mezzolani, 1996). In this period are documented the funerary practices of cremation and inhumation and, in addition, of an occasional re-utilization of Punic tombs, new tomb types are known, such as ‘Capuchin’ style burials, earth pits, mausoleums, ‘cupa’
type tombs and lythic sarcophagi (Zucca, 1984).