The birth of cities

Carbonia, area archeologica di Monte Sirai. Foto da Sardegna DigitalLibrary

After a first settlement phase marked only by the construction of simple commercial stores, the Phoenician presence takes on the characteristics of a real urbanization.
In other words, the first cities were founded, often precisely in the sites affected by the presence of warehouses, located, in the case of coastal urban centers, on islands or headlands that guaranteed, on one coastline or another, a landing protected from any adverse wind condition.
Between the 9th and 7th centuries BC, the coastal towns and villages of Sulky (Sant'Antioco), Karaly (Cagliari), Nora (Pula), Bithia (Domus de Maria), Inosim (Carloforte), Cuccureddus (Villasimius), Tharros (Cabras), Othoca (Santa Giusta), and the inner centers of Monte Sirai (Carbonia) and Pani Loriga (Santadi) were founded.
This is a new phenomenon for Sardinia, which in the Nuragic age had experienced only the residential module of the village (located both near nuraghi and in an isolated position).
The peacefulness of relations between indigenous Sardinian and Semitic peoples offers an implicit testimony to the nature of the Phoenician presence in Sardinia. In fact, even though it came to an increasingly intense control of vast territorial areas, it never came to assume the characteristics of a real domination, if anything, of the integration between two different peoples.
The organization of space in the Phoenician city had to include a wall, a port-market (for the coastal centers), several blocks, a sacred area located high in the heart of the town and, outside the walls, the necropolis and the tophet.

Update

17/10/2025 - 14:12