Contribution Of Archaeology To Medieval And Modern Sardinia 275
Olbia, the capital of the giudicato of Gallura, was known as Civita from the
twelfth to the late thirteenth centuries, when this name came to be used only
for the ecclesiastical organization of the region.23 Archaeological data offers no
details on the topographical features and materials of this center, which must
have coincided with ancient Olbia-Fausania. The sole find in the area around
the port of Olbia is a vessel holding ceramic Forum Ware, which can be dated to
around the tenth century (though not definitively), thus offering a chronology
for the central medieval period of Civita-Olbia, given the lack of archaeological
medieval remains.24 For this reason, the relations between the episcopal see
of the cathedral of San Simplicio in Olbia, whose first phase ran from 1050 to
1065,25 and the settlement of Civita have still not been determined.26
Recent studies have focused on the Pisan foundation of Terranova at the
turn of the thirteenth century, which would have been planned following a
Tuscan urban model, but whose historical structures were subjected to radi-
cal transformation and substitution with no documentation of their original
form.27 The initiative behind the Pisan foundation of Terranova entailed the
redefinition of the port’s infrastructure through archaeologically documented
land reclamation that determined the advance of the coastline.28
2 Sardinia’s Deserted Medieval Villages: Searching for Models from
the Field to the Document
Since 1995, archaeological research on villages has focused on constructing a
model of a settlement that would grant concrete form to terms used in written
sources for various types of habitation, and which would shed more light on
them, so as to enhance historical and anthropological interpretations based
on material remains. The data gathered in the Atlanti (Atlas of the villages),
23 Angelo Aldo Castellaccio, “Olbia nel Medioevo. Aspetti politico-istituzionali,” in Da Olbìa
ad Olbia: 2500 anni di storia di una citta mediterranea, Atti del Convegno internazionale
di studi, 12–14 maggio 1994, Olbia (Sassari, 2004), pp. 33–70; Corrado Zedda, Le città della
Gallura medioevale: commercio, società e istituzioni (Cagliari, 2003).
24 Rubens D’Oriano, “Relitti di storia: lo scavo del porto di Olbia,” in L’Africa Romana, Atti del
XIV Convegno di studio, 7–10 dicembre 2000 Sassari (Rome, 2002), pp. 1249–1262.
25 Luigi Agus, San Simplicio in Olbia e la diocesi di Civita: studio artistico e socio-religioso
dell’edificio medievale (Soveria Mannelli (Catanzaro), 2009).
26 Letizia Pani Ermini, La storia dell’altomedioevo in Sardegna, p. 393.
27 Marco Cadinu, “Olbia: una Terranova medievale in Sardegna,” in Città nuove medievali:
San Giovanni Valdarno, la Toscana, l’Europa (Rome, 2008), pp. 149–156.
28 D’Oriano, “Relitti di storia”; Giovanna Pietra, Olbia romana (Sassari, 2013).