20 Hobart
Cosentino, who edited the volume mentioned above, Ai Confini dell’Impero,
on the role of Byzantium and an updated status quaestionis for this period of
transition.40
Recently, Rossana Martorelli (see her chapter infra) has taken up the task
of addressing the late antique period through archaeology, in an attempt to
understand the introduction of Christianity into Sardinia.41 For the medieval
period, churches start to be built in the second half of the eleventh century
and it is now possible to date undocumented buildings, thanks to pottery
(bacini) embedded in the walls of churches. Bacini, medieval time capsules
of sorts, provide evidence of trade between Sardinia and other centers in the
Mediterranean.42 Underwater archaeology is expected to provide a wealth of
new information about the activities of Sardinia’s ports and merchants, from
medieval and modern times (see Milanese infra).43
40 Salvatore Cosentino, “Potere ed istituzioni nella Sardegna bizantina,” in Corrias and
Cosentino, Ai confini dell’impero, pp. 327–365; Salvatore Cosentino, “Byzantine Sardinia
between West and East. Features of a Regional Culture,” Millennium—Jahrbuch/
Millennium Yearbook. Jahruch zu Kultur und Geschichte des ersten Jahrtausends I (2004),
pp. 327–365.
41 Roberto Coroneo and Rossana Martorelli, “Chiese e Culti di Matrice Bizantina in
Sardegna,” in The Insular System of the Early Byzantine Mediterranean: Archaeology and
History (Nicosia—Cyprus, 24th–26th October 2007), eds Demetrios Michaelides, Philippe
Pergola, and Enrico Zanini. BAR Int. Series 2523 (2013), pp. 47–64; Rossana Martorelli,
“Insediamenti monastici in Sardegna dalle origini al XV secolo: line essenziali,” in
Sardinia. A Mediterranean Crossroads, eds Olivetta Schena and Luciano Gallinari (Turin,
2010), pp. 39–72; Rossana Martorelli, “I nuovi orientamenti dell’Archeologia Cristiana,”
in Archeo Arte. Rivista elettronica di Archeologia ed Arte. Supplemento 2012 al numero 1
(2010), pp. 424–427.
42 Michelle Hobart, “Merchants, Monks, and Medieval Sardinian Architecture,” in Studies
in the Archaeology of the Medieval Mediterranean, ed. James J. Schryver (Leiden, 2010),
pp. 93–114; Michelle Hobart and Maria Francesca Porcella, “Bacini ceramici in Sardegna,”
in I bacini murati medievali. Problemi e stato della ricerca (Albisola, 1993), pp. 139–160;
Abulafia, “Southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia; David Abulafia, “The Pisan Bacini in the
Medieval Mediterranean Economy: An Historian’s Point of View,” in Papers in Italian
Archaeology I, BAR Int. Series 246 (1987), pp. 278–302; Ottavio Banti, “I rapporti di Pisa e
gli stati islamici dell’Africa settentrionale tral’XI e il XIV secolo,” in Le ceramiche medievali
delle chiese di Pisa. Contributo per una migliore comprensione delle loro caratteristiche e del
loro significato quale documento di storia, ed. Giovanna Piancastelli Politi Nencini (Pisa,
1983), pp. 9–26.
43 Rubens D’Oriano, G. Petra, and E. Riccardi, “Nuovi dati sulle attività del porto di Olbia tra
VI e IX secolo,” in Corrias, Forme e caratteri della presenza bizantina, pp. 129–145; Attilio
Mastino, Pier Giorgio Spanu, and Raimondo Zucca, Naves plenis velis euntes. Tharros
Felix, 3 (Rome, 2009); Rubens D’Oriano, “Relitti di storia: lo scavo del porto di Olbia,” in