- chapter 12: Phoenician and Punic Sardinia –
those adopted by the Phoenicians. It is certainly the case that simultaneously with the
spread of these early models of urban life in the West, the same phenomenon begins in
the Etruscan world, and in neighboring Latium with the birth of Rome itself. But not
in Sardinia.
Between the eleventh and the eighth-seventh centuries bc, partially in parallel (eighth
and seventh century bc) with the birth of the Phoenician centers on the coast of the island,
Nuragic civilization undergoes one or more phases of massive change, on the nature of
which – breakdown, change, reorganization, crisis and recovery, etc. as well as its history,
methods, motives and outcomes – there is no consensus among scholars, especially because
of the different dating, higher or lower, assigned to entire categories of objects essential
to the chronologies of contexts, some of which (wine jugs and bronze fi gurines) are crucial
for the study of relations with the Phoenician and Etruscan world. In any case at the end of
this phase, between the eighth and seventh century bc, the Nuragic population, though
of course far from disappearing, gradually abandoned the fi eld of Mediterranean trade that
for Sardinia is now fi rmly in the hands of the Phoenicians, albeit with the assistance of the
Etruscans and Greeks especially in the seventh and sixth centuries bc.
THE PHOENICIANS OF SARDINIA
AND THE ETRUSCANSAnd so we come fi nally to the specifi c theme of this work, the relationship between the
Phoenicians of Sardinia and the Etruscans. This is a very articulate argument for which
the ever more abundant and sophisticated studies devoted to it have reached considerable
depth, covering individual and highly detailed local issues to the overall very intricate
Mediterranean scenario in which these relationships occur (a quasi-global world in the
modern sense, in which roughly “anyone can sell anything, anywhere”). Because it is not
feasible to give here an account of the full scope of this complexity, and the abundance
and diversity of fi ndings that describe it, we will proceed by summarizing the key issues
especially about the ebb and fl ow of trade and its cultural implications.
From Phoenician Sardinia between the eighth and sixth centuries bc, products enter
Etruria both from the island and from the Phoenician colonial world of the West and
the East from the motherland. It is important to emphasize that among them there are
also some objects of artistic production of the most refi ned workmanship, executed in
materials of great value, such as ivory and precious metals, which have played a part in
shaping not only the language of Etruscan art but also the ideological forms of display
of the power of the principes (“princes”) of Etruria. It should, however, be considered
that goods from the Phoenician motherland and the western Phoenician colonial world
could arrive in Etruria from circuits that do not involve Sardinia, i.e. directly from the
production areas and /or other regions, that are not even Phoenician, but which are also
intermediary.
Conversely, Etruscan products from Etruria reached Sardinia and even the indigenous
world, mainly through the predominantly Phoenician ports (Fig. 12.8), but there were
also Greek goods, which, as we shall see, the island received directly from maritime
circuits (Fig. 12.9) that did not necessarily involve Etruria. It is very likely that Sardinia
has in turn carried these goods to the Phoenician world of Iberia and Carthage, for they
were quite popular in those regions, where they also came from different trade routes that
did not touch on the island. In essence what we know of this trade through archaeological