The disappeared towns of the other territories

Arborea

Where today rises Santa Giusta, the Phoenicians between the VIII and the VII century B.C founded the town of Othoca, nearby a nuraghic village communicating with the sea and in the shelter of the homonym pond. Othoca was a colony risen according to the will of traders come by sea from the current Lebanon, to turn over their products and to embark raw materials to export somewhere else. However they passed from commerce to a more complex and profitable socio-cultural relation. Bosa, Bithia and the settlement of Mount Sirai (Carbonia), in addition to the more famous and important Karales (Cagliari), Tharros, Sulci (Sant’Antioco) and Nora, were built in the same period. In Othoca which is now hidden under the actual Santa Giusta town, archaeological diggings are in progress in order to bring to light a town that has known great wealth.

Barigadu

Forum Traiani was the ancient name for Fordongianus when during the Romans Age (between the end of the I century A.D. and the beginning of the II century A.D., under the imperator Traiano, who wanted a military station at the borders with Barbagie) it was village located at close range form the actual town. During the I century B.C. it was instead called Aquae Hypsitanae, referring to the Tirso river: the inhabited center rose in fact on the left side of the main Sardinia river, where the local nuraghic people had even found ideal conditions to carry out its activities.
Under the Roman rule, Forum Traiani reached its maximum splendor. Among the nowadays most visible testimonies there are the thermal baths (from the source flows out water at a temperature of 54 centigrade degrees, used for therapeutic aims: the first swimming pools have been constructed in the I century A.D., but the spa has been enlarged during the III century A.D.) and some portions of roads, aqueducts and even of an amphitheater seating more than 5.000 spectators, in the small valley of Apprezzau. The wealth of this trade and agricultural center has been conserved also under the Vandals and the Byzantines, but in the VIII century A.D. began the decay period culminated with the transfer of the bishop's seat from Fordongianus (that in the meantime had been renamed Chrysopolis, that means “golden town”) to Othoca (Santa Giusta). With the advent of the Giudicato of Arborea, the town has taken the name of Fortroiani.

Logudoro-Meilogu

Actually the village of Rebeccu is not disappeared: it has simply emptied slowly of its inhabitants, when the population of the zone (in the XIV century) converged in the neighbor and more modern Bonorva. Once it was the capital of the “curatorìa” of Costaval. Fortunately, the local administration started the recovery also in the light of the interest shown in the last years from many tourists.

Montiferru

For the village of San Serafino, in the territory of Ghilarza (in front of the final part of the Omodeo lake, on the borderline with Barigadu), goes what said about Lollòve: it is improper to speak about “disappeared town”, since the ancient village is still physically present. It lives up only in occasion of some festivities, among which those of San Serafino and San Raffaele, that attract hundreds of people from the whole territory, beyond the owners of the houses that surround the beautiful trachyte church. It is a place in which time seems has stopped and a place surrounded by vegetation, especially between autumn and spring.

Sarcidano

In Nurri there are the ruins of the town of Biora, founded by the Romans during their permanence in the Sarcidano, considered a conjunction bridge between the Campidano and the Gallura.

Sulcis-Iglesiente

Carbonia was founded in the Fascist age, in 1937: it represents the most important example of Italian planned mining centre. But in the ancient ages, the area was occupied by the settlements of the Phoenicians and, even before, by the pre-historical and nuraghic peoples. On the Sirai Mount, that dominates the inhabited centre, you can visit the ruins of the settlement built by the Phoenicians already in the VIII century B.C., of a necropolis (interesting the area adapted to the cremation of the dead) and of a tophet (a sacred area delimited by a fencing: it has never been proved, as some people believed, that it was a place used for the blood sacrifices offered to the deities. It is true, instead, that the ashes of children born dead or passed away in tender age were kept in cinerary urns).

 

The town of Sant’Antioco rises in the same place in which it was founded by the Phoenicians in the VIII century B.C., with the name of Sulky (the name was pronounced Sulky, softened by the Latin language in Sulci), even if have been found evidences of nuraghic settlements. Close to the acropolis have been uncovered two statues in stone representing the lions to which was symbolically entrusted the custody of its inhabitants. In 238 B.C. the town fell in hand of the Romans, who defeated the Punic army.
Within battles for power between Giulio Cesare and Pompeo, Sulci dared to side with the second one and for this reason had to suffered a strict punishment: a destiny that, instead, did not touch Karalis (the current Cagliari), that supported Cesare from the beginning. Sulci became then a bishop's seat but, in the XIII century, the diocese was transferred to Tratalias (see Churches).
Not everything has got lost: very interesting are the remains of the fortifications, the Punic necropolis active since the I century B.C. (we suggest visiting the so-called “tomba dell’affresco”-“the fresco's grave”), the catacombs (Punic hypogaea adapted and enlarged in the early Christian Age) and a tophet. A large part of the objects recovered during the diggings is kept in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cagliari (the National Archaeological Museum of Cagliari) and in the museum of Sant’Antioco. It is believed that Sulci has gone through an healthy period from the economic point of view until the Spanish rule, when the extractive activity suddenly decreased.

In Guspini countryside Neapolis, a town founded by the Carthaginians around the VI century B.C., is well worth a visit. You can see the ruins of the constructions built by the Romans hundreds of years later such as some houses, the thermal baths, an aqueduct and even a small church obtained from a thermal building and dedicated to Santa Maria de Nabui. Neapolis was connected to Metalla and to other disappeared towns, in which already at that time, the mining activity was feverish.

Trexenta

In the countryside of Senorbì, until 1681, rose the village of Segolaj, that was abandoned because of the umpteenth plague epidemics, that had reduced to a few tens the inhabitants of the village. The survivors moved to the nearby Senorbì and used the material of the houses of Segolaj to build the new buildings. However the little church of the village still remained a point of reference for the inhabitants of the zone, to the extent that the traditional celebrations in honour of Santa Maria della Neve, scheduled for the 5th August, were continued. Subsequently, the small church of San Nicola (the patron of the village) took the name of Santa Mariedda, as the homonym hill on which it was constructed.