512 Cadinu
Figure 19.6 Muravera in the Sarrabus area in the southeast of the island has an urban
structure based on Mediterranean Islamic models, according to schemes that
were widespread in many of the region’s villages (Ufficio Tecnico Erariale, Cessato
Catasto, Cagliari province, Muravera, detail, about 1920).
contexts (Tharros, Santa Maria di Castelsardo, Cagliari, San Saturno) support
the thesis that medieval Sardinia was a place where Christian and Muslim set-
tlements coexisted (Fig. 19.6). The traces of an Islamic necropolis in Cagliari
and a military garrison in Tharros indicate a rather significant, stable, and mili-
tarily engaged presence in areas that were not limited to coastal garrisons, but
instead had closer ties with local production and with an agricultural and pas-
toral milieu.31 Perhaps this presence was mediated by local aristocracies prior
31 Kufic funerary inscriptions from San Saturno, Cagliari suggest an Islamic necropolis,
see Donatella Salvi and Piero Fois, “Parole per caso. Antiche e nuove iscrizioni funera-
rie senza contesto a Cagliari e dintorni, in L’epigrafe di Marcus Arrecinus Helius. Esegesi
di un reperto,” in L’epigrafe di Marcus Arrecinus Helius: esegesi di un reperto: i plurali di
una singolare iscrizione: atti della giornata di studi (Senorbì, 23 aprile 2010), ed. Antonio
Forci (Ortacesus, 2011), pp. 107–134. On Islamic seals in Tharros between the end of the
seventh and the early eighth centuries, see Pier Giorgio Spanu and Raimondo Zucca,