[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
The American audience was introduced to Sardinia’s Sinis Peninsula when a giant warrior statue from the Iron Age site of Mont’e Prama was temporarily installed in the Greek and Roman wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2023. A smaller photographic installation on the ancient city Tharros, located at the southern tip of the peninsula, was displayed at the same time at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University. These were ambitious projects undertaken as part of the Sardinia Cultural Heritage Project, a collaboration between the Italian Academy, the government of Sardinia, and the Mont’e Prama Foundation. Conferences were held to accompany both exhibits, which have led to edited volumes coordinated by Barbara Faedda and Paolo Carta. The first is on the Mont’e Prama statues[1] and the other is on the ancient city of Tharros, the subject of this review. The book begins with a concise introduction by the editors, who describe Tharros, outline its history of excavation, and provide background to the book. The stated goal of the volume, the first full-length English treatment of Tharros, is to “remind us of Sardinia’s magnificent yet often forgotten ancient society” (1).
In Chapter 1, Alfonso Stiglitz details the history the northern Sinis Peninsula from prehistory to the Iron Age as well as its history of scholarly study. Stiglitz takes readers through the evidence for Neolithic settlement and burials, followed by the explosion of megalithic tower construction (nuraghi), and finally the decline in nuraghi building accompanied by a “ritualization” of the landscape during the Iron Age, when the Mont’e Prama statues were carved. Stiglitz makes two key points related to Tharros. The first is that, during the Bronze Age, nuraghi of the northern Sinis Peninsula were distant from the shore and typically closer to wetlands. By contrast, the southern Sinis Peninsula had more coastal nuraghi, including two on Capo San Marco, south of Tharros. The second point is that the urban history of Tharros and the expansion of major indigenous sites like S’Urachi, where the author has directed excavations with Peter van Dommelen, began in the eighth century BCE, as smaller settlements were abandoned. Ultimately the chapter provides a helpful regional panorama to complement the site-based focus of many of the other chapters. Stiglitz is deeply knowledgeable about the archaeology of the Sinis Peninsula, and this chapter is a glimpse into his expansive scholarly output.
In Chapter 2, Raimondo Zucca delivers an account of early excavations at Tharros, retracing publications, newspaper articles, and personal biographies. Much of this story centers on Lord Vernon, who—after excavating at Cumae, living in Italy, and traveling the Mediterranean—turned his sights on Tharros. He excavated at the southern necropolis in 1851, uncovering fourteen rock-cut tombs and carrying off scarabs and other objects for his private collection. Lord Vernon’s work prompted illicit interest in the site during the later nineteenth century, which was put to an official stop by government decree. Subsequently, the director of the museum of Cagliari, Gaetano Cara, carried out permitted excavations at Tharros and sold thousands of objects abroad to the British Museum and to private collectors. Another lot was purchased by the provincial administration of Cagliari in 1863, which is now housed in the museum of Cagliari. The history is an unfortunate but not uncommon one; Zucca’s lively retelling provides context for the later chapters that focus on recent work at Tharros.
In Chapter 3, Carla Del Vais gives a summary of the archaeological work of the University of Cagliari and the Cabras Civic Museum carried out under her direction since the 1980s. The most space is afforded to Tharros’ northern necropolis, where cremation burials of the seventh–sixth centuries BCE have been excavated as well as later hypogea. The chapter’s detail is helpful, especially given the cemetery’s similarities to the looted southern necropolis. Also significant is the paleoenvironmental and archaeological study of the city’s harbor in what is now the Mistras Lagoon. Her team documented the transformation of a deep inlet into an enclosed lagoon, expedited by the construction of a stone breakwater in the fourth century BCE. Related studies of the pollen and animal remains from lagoon coring reflect the intensification of agriculture in Tharros’ hinterland from the sixth to the first centuries BCE, especially meaningful data in the absence of systematic excavations of rural settlements in the territory. Del Vais also provided cursory accounts of Late Antique architecture on the hill and of ‘Temple K,’ a late Republican religious complex within Tharros’ urban center.
In chapter 4, Anna Chiara Fariselli is tasked with explaining her ongoing work and that of her mentor, Enrico Acquaro, undertaken by the University of Bologna at Tharros since the 1970s. Acquaro excavated at the Murru Mannu hill, where the tophet and a fifth-third century BCE metallurgical district were uncovered. While the tophet is referenced further in a later chapter, Fariselli mentions Acquaro’s collaborative work on the neonatal and infant burials found there. Much of Fariselli’s own fieldwork has focused on the southern necropolis, which has brought to light—and allowed for better recording of—burials from the area excavated by Lord Vernon. She details the more spectacular chamber tombs and speculates about the use of collective cremation burials for merchants, fisherman, and other Tharros residents. She also introduces her work along the cardo maximus, which has delineated Punic-Roman urban road transformations and monumental buildings on the hill. A primary theme of the chapter is the central Mediterranean character of the material and bioarchaeological evidence, pointing to a direct relationship with Carthage rather than with the Phoenician homeland in the East.
In the following chapter, Raimondo Zucca compiles evidence for imports to Tharros during the Archaic period. Although he touches briefly on the diversity of Etruscan bucchero forms and various kinds of pottery from the Greek world that have been found at Tharros, the chapter is largely a historiographical essay. He notes that imported wares were long overlooked, or Greek imports identified as Etruscan, until a foundational study by Michel Gras (1974). Recent work in the necropoleis and reevaluation of museum collections has helped to identify Tharros as a significant emporium in this era. Zucca presents the intriguing possibility that the Greek wares could have been imported from Etruscan contexts, rather than directly from the eastern Mediterranean. As with Fariselli’s chapter, he emphasizes Tharros’ central Mediterranean trade and cultural connections. The chapter closes with a synopsis of museums that hold relevant collections.
Tharros is one of the central Mediterranean Punic cities with a tophet, including characteristic votive stelae and cremated child and animal remains in ceramic urns. In Chapter 6, a reprint of another work,[2] Bruno D’Andrea provides a synopsis of the scholarly controversies surrounding the tophets and the practice of child sacrifice. The argument, which remains an open and contentious debate, is whether these sacred areas were places for depositing infants and children who had been sacrificed while alive, or whether they were burial grounds for a subset of the young population.[3] While a more detailed presentation of Tharros’ tophet would have been a welcome addition to the chapter,[4] the text is nevertheless useful for its measured discussion of the evolving arguments and expansive bibliographic summary. D’Andrea is hopeful that more decisive evidence will emerge from new bioarchaeological work. He also argues for a reconsideration of the chronological and geographical variation in tophets in the central Mediterranean, including similar ritual practices involving cremated animals at sites that post-date the Roman destruction of Carthage.
In Chapter 7, Stephen Ellis and Eric Poehler consider questions about the urban development and final abandonment of Tharros. The chapter presents the results of the University of Cincinnati’s excavations at Tharros, which began in 2019, and have focused on the southern Roman shops, the tetrastyle temple and its surrounding area in the civic center, and a stretch of the Murru Mannu hill with deep, unexplored stratigraphy. As relative newcomers to this site, their fresh perspective brings carefully collected archaeological data and opportunities to reassess long-held assumptions. Rather than being organized as a field report, the chapter is a diachronic, synthetic urban history. The authors show that the division between the older Punic city and the new Roman one does not align neatly with the historical chronology, wherein Sardinia came under Roman control in 238 BCE. ‘Punic’ material culture and architectural details suggest that many elements of the original city and the cultural identity of its inhabitants endured under Roman rule. They identify urban changes that emerged later: an infilling around the tetrastyle temple in the mid-first century BCE and another infilling in the early second century CE, accompanied by the installation of a new road system, sewer, aqueduct, and major public buildings. Especially significant is their proposal, based on the dating of coins and the absence of new construction, that Tharros was abandoned in the fourth or early fifth century CE. This is a major revision to the eighth–eleventh century dates that have formed the scholarly consensus for decades, and one example of how new excavation can radically alter established interpretations.
Like many large sites in Italy and elsewhere, concessions to excavate Tharros have been allocated in a somewhat fragmented way, resulting in teams that excavate small areas of the site on their individual terms and with distinct research questions. This book is more of a historiography of this fragmented tradition of work at Tharros than a presentation of the site itself, though certain chapters do provide more synthetic historical narratives. A reader wanting to know about the ancient history of Tharros might be better off turning to earlier monographs in Italian.[5] Nevertheless, this volume is beautifully produced in full color and its chapters are short with expansive bibliographies, so it will be a helpful starting point for scholars interested in ancient Sardinia, Phoenician and Punic archaeology, and Roman urbanism. As part of the larger efforts of the Sardinia Cultural Heritage Project, it will also be of interest to an educated English-speaking public audience made newly aware of the remarkable archaeological evidence from the island.
Works Cited
Acquaro, Enrico, and Claudio Finzi. 1986. Tharros. Carlo Delfino Editore.
D’Andrea, Bruno. 2019. “Il tofet: un problema aperto.” In Il tempo dei Fenici. Incontri in Sardegna dall’VIII al III s. a.C., edited by Carla Del Vais, Michele Guirguis, and Alfonso Stiglitz. Ilisso.
Faedda, Barbara, and Paolo Carta, eds. 2023. A Lost Mediterranean Culture: The Giant Statues of Sardinia’s Mont’e Prama. Columbia University Press.
Floris, Stefano. 2022. Il tofet di Tharros. CNR Edizioni.
Garnand, Brien K., Joseph A. Green, and Paolo Xella, eds. 2023. Infants as votive offerings: Phoenician Tophet precincts in context. Journal of Ancient History 11.2.
Gras, Michel. 1974. “Les importations du VIe siècle avant J.-C. à Tharros (Sardaigne). Musée de Cagliari, Antiquarium Arborense d’Oristano.” Mélanges de l’école française de Rome 86 (1): 79–139.
Zucca, Raimondo. 1993. Tharros. Edizione Giovanni Corrais.
Authors and Titles
Introduction: Barbara Faedda and Paolo Carta
- Archaeology of a Prehistoric and Protohistoric Landscape Northern Sinis in the Scientific Research by the Museum of San Vero Milis (Alfonso Stiglitz)
- “Little California”: Lord Vernon’s 1851 Tharros Excavation (Raimondo Zucca)
- Between Land and Sea: the University of Cagliari’s Research in Tharros and Its Territory (Carla Del Vais)
- The University of Bologna at Tharros and Capo San Marco: Forty Years of Excavations and Archaeological Enhancement Projects (Anna Chiara Fariselli)
- Etruscan and Greek Archaic Imports to Tharros and the Museography of Tharrensian Archaeology (Raimondo Zucca)
- The Tophet: Different Fragments of the Same Story? Or Data Wrongly Assembled Ex Post Facto? (Bruno D’Andrea)
- New Directions in the Urban Archaeology of Tharros: the Cincinnati Excavations (Stephen J.R. Ellis and Eric E. Poehler)
Notes
[1] Faedda and Carta 2023.
[2] D’Andrea 2019.
[3] Garnand et al. 2023.
[4] See Floris 2022.
[5] Acquaro and Finzi 1986; Zucca 1993.