340 Rovina
of S. Pietro di Silki lists names of the many villages located within this portion
of the giudicato of Torres. Included in this register are those that correspond
to the modern, urban Silki, Bosove, Quitarone, and Thathari. In particular, the
name of the village of Thathari (the future Sassari), and of its parish church,
S. Nicola, first appears in a document in the register dating from between 1113
and 1127.16
Only recently have archaeological investigations in the city’s historic cen-
ter made it possible to identify the remains of this initial village and to re-
date its foundations to between the tenth and eleventh centuries, thanks to
the presence of glazed ceramic fragments of the Forum Ware type inside what
remains of houses.17 Both sites contained residual material from the Roman
imperial era, demonstrating earlier occupation of the settlement area. At two
different but relatively close points within the historic center (Figs. 13.2 and
13.3)—on Via Monache Cappuccine and Piazza Duomo-largo Seminario—
some remains of houses constructed in stone, bound by clay, were found. The
buildings, although not complete in plan, seem to have been constituted of
a single quadrangular compartment, oriented in a N/NW-S /SE direction, with
slight differences in gradation, and divided by narrow streets or simple water
drains (Fig. 13.4). The floors were made of dirt, with traces of hearths, and they
were possibly covered by brick, given the presence of a heap of Roman type
flat tiles in Largo Monache Cappuccine.18 Based on the distance between the
two sites, the rural villa of Thathari, now possessing stone houses, had already
been notably expanded between the tenth and eleventh centuries, and was
destined to grow further in the following one. In addition, the habitations
found on these streets were perfectly inserted into the present urban fabric,
which, in this zone, has retained a circular plan—probably a holdover from
the medieval village.
16 Ignazio Delogu, Condaghe di San Pietro di Silki. Testo logudorese inedito dei secoli XI–XIII
pubblicato dal dott. Giuliano Bonazzi, bibliotecario dell’Università di Roma, trans. Ignazio
Delogu (Sassari, 1997), table no. 83; Alessandro Soddu and Giovanni Strinna, Il Condaghe
di San Pietro in Silki (Nuoro, 2013).
17 See Laura Biccone, “Medieval Pottery,” in this volume, notes 39, 40, 41.
18 This conclusion can be drawn despite the absence of ruins in situ. On the early medi-
eval village, see Rovina, “Scavi urbani a Sassari.”; and Laura Biccone, Mauro Fiori, and
Daniela Rovina, “Il villaggio di X–XI secolo,” in Sassari sottosopra. On the context of Largo
Monache Cappuccine, see also Laura Biccone, “Sassari. Largo Monache Cappuccine sud,
2000–2002,” Archeologia Postmedievale 6 (2002), pp. 233–235; and Laura Biccone, “Largo
Monache Cappuccine,” in Rovina and Fiori, Sassari, pp. 56–63.