Sant'Antioco

The Island of Sant' Antioco is joined to Sardinia through an isthmus that permit a land connection.  The city of Sant' Antioco was founded by the Phoenician in the VIII century B.C., with the name of Slky ( pronounced Sulky and sweetened by the Latin language in Sulci), but in the territory there are many more ancient testimonies of nuragic settlements.  In the 238 B.C. the city passed under the Roman control, that defeated the Punic army  in a battle. The Sulci was an episcopal center until the XIII century.  Quite interesting are also the fortifications and the catacombs made by the Phoenician in the calcareous rock and adapted by the Roman in the I-IV century A.D.: the first Christians of the territory gathered here.

Very remarkable are also the frescoes, pretty intact and the loculus in which were placed the defuncts. In the main room, there is an altar-sarcophagus, that conserved for a along time the reliquaries of Sant' Antioco: according to the tradition, the Saint would have passed the rest of his last life's days  inside these catacombs. The patron of the city was a doctor from Mauritania that, following  its conversion to Christianity, was exiled to the Island of Sant' Antioco, where he died in 125 A.D.: the celebration in its honor lasts four days and probably goes back to the far 1519.

A necropolis in the Monte ‘e Cresia  locality of this town was built between the VI and the II century A.D.:  the "tomb of the fresco" is particularly striking. The majority of the objects found  during the diggings are kept at the National Archaeological Museum of Cagliari and in the museum of Sant' Antioco. Instead, the numerous findings found in all the Sulcis  territory are exposed at the Antiquarium, a museum constructed next to the eighteenth century fortress.

Naturally, archeology is not the main attraction that lure people paying a visit to this locality. Do not miss the basilica dedicated to Sant' Antioco:  some of the fragments of its granite slabs were imported from Rome and Ostia, and go back to the III century A.D. From the church it is possible to access to the catacombs underneath.  Very old but still working is the Is Solus spring, built by the Romans in the III century A.D.

Among the fixed appointments of this town, apart from the festivity in honor of Sant' Antioco, we  point out the San Pietro apostle Festival, between the end of June and the beginning of July:  five days of celebrations on the city coast culminating with a sea procession of the Saint simulacrum. The fishermen offer samples of fish prepared by them.  Sant' Antioco is famous for the tapestries and the carpets, but also for the ability and the experience of the axe masters who realize boats  in valuable wood.

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