- chapter 12: Phoenician and Punic Sardinia –
Figure 12.3 Mycenaean vase for perfume (alabaster) from nuraghe Arrubiu of
Orroli (mid-fourteenth century bc).THE PHOENICIANS IN SARDINIA AND IN THE
WESTERN MEDITERRANEANAfter the collapse of the Mycenaean world, from the twelfth century bc the role of
protagonists in the voyages from the East to the Western Mediterranean is inherited
by the merchants settled between Cyprus (Fig. 12.4) and the opposite Syro-Palestinian
coast, and by the mid-ninth century bc the Phoenicians begin to distinguish themselves
and to prevail, especially the city of Tyre.
These eastern merchants, focusing on metallurgy, reach Nuragic Sardinia, which then
is the main carrier on routes of commerce that connect the Iberian-Atlantic area and the
Etruscan-Latial regions (Fig. 12.5). The island is such an important point-connection of
these circuits with the traffi c that reaches from the East. Its navy is fi rst the precursor
and then an important partner (perhaps initially functioning as a leader) of the Levantine
merchants and then of the Phoenicians providing the knowledge and fi rst access to the
mineral resources of Iberia and of Etruria.
The success of this commerce induces the Phoenicians from the late ninth century bc
to strengthen their presence in the West, whether through traditions of hospitality with
indigenous communities, as in Huelva in Iberia and Sant’Imbenia at Alghero, Sardinia
(Fig. 12.6), or with the establishment of their own autonomous settlements such as
Carthage itself, to cite only the most famous case. This second mode of appropriation
will soon become the most important and widespread, and throughout the eighth
and seventh centuries bc, stable Phoenician settlements dot the shores of the Western
Mediterranean from Sicily to the Atlantic via Sardinia, North Africa and Iberia (Fig.
12.7), weaving and consolidating over time a network, previously established (ninth-
eighth century bc), of pan-Mediterranean enterprises, sometimes in partnership with
the Greeks and the indigenous peoples of the West, including the Nuragic Sardinians,
and then more and more independently. The main Phoenician centers are Tharros,
Othoca (Santa Giusta), Neapolis, Sulky (Sant’Antioco), Nora, Bithia, Karaly (Cagliari),
Olbia (Fig. 12.1).
Parallel to this was the projection of the Greeks to the west, perhaps initially with the
Phoenicians thanks to the close relationship the two peoples entertained on the shores of
the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. They then settled permanently from the third
quarter of the eighth century bc in Southern Italy, therefore called Magna Graecia, and
in central-eastern Sicily, weaving there too a global network of trade in ways similar to