Volunteer’s Report: Searching for the Phoenicians in Sardinia - The BAS Library
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1990 Excavation Opportunities

Volunteer’s Report: Searching for the Phoenicians in Sardinia

By Joan G. Scheuer

Tharros, the site of an ancient city in Sardinia, is best approached by sea. A scattering of ruins near a small village, it lies on a tiny peninsula that hangs south off the western coast of the island. The site’s easily defensible location and its ample harbor on the Bay of Oristano have shaped its history. To get to Tharros, we take a boat from the modern city of Oristano, cross the bay and sail past the sheltering waters of the nearby lagoon. Soon the two tall columns that mark the remains of the fallen Roman city come into […]

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Endnotes

1.

The 1984 expedition worked in close cooperation with directors of antiquities in both the southwest and northern regions of Sardinia. Fulvia Lo Schiavo was director of antiquities for Sassari and Nuoro; and the late Ferruccio Barreca was then director of antiquities for Cagliari and Oristano.

2.

Margaret Guido, Sardinia (New York Praeger, 1963), p. 21.

3.

Miriam S. Balmuth, “The Nuraghi of Sardinia: An Introduction” in Studies in Sardinian Archaeology, ed. Balmuth and Robert J. Rowland, Jr. (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1984), p. 28.

4.

Lenore Gallin, “The Prehistoric Towers of Sardinia.” Archaeology 40 (Sept./Oct. 1987), p. 29.

5.

Balmuth, “The Nuraghi of Sardinia,” p. 34.

6.

Enrico Acquaro, “Bronzes,” in The Phoenicians, ed. Committee of Palazzo Grassi (Milan: Bompiani, 1988), p. 422.

7.

Balmuth, “The Nuraghi of Sardinia,” p. 40.

8.

Sabatino Moscati, “Colonization of the Mediterranean,” in The Phoenicians, pp. 46–48.

9.

Lionel Casson, The Ancient Mariners (London: Gollancz, 1960), p. 71.

10.

Frank Moore Cross, private communication to the author, September 1988: “The date of the founding of Carthage is also put at 825 B.C. by Pompeius Trogus, and confirmed in the Annals of Tyre, as reported by Josephus.”

11.

Moscati, “The Carthaginian Empire,” in The Phoenicians, p. 54. Elissa’s name was linked with that of Dido, and thus she appears in Virgil’s poem.

12.

Ferruccio Barreca, “The City and the Site of Tharros” in Tharros: A Catalogue of Material in the British Museum from Phoenician and Other Tombs at Tharros, Sardinia, ed. Trustees of the British Museum, R.D. Barnet and C. Mendelson (London: British Museum, 1987), pp. 25–26.

13.

Barreca, “The City and the Site,” p. 26.

14.

Carlo Tronchetti, “The Cities of Roman Sardinia,” in Studies in Sardinian Archaeology (see note 3), p. 241.

15.

The coins, like all our finds, were turned over to representatives of the Sardinian museums that sponsored our expedition.

16.

See Cyrus H. Gordon, “Tarshish” in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 4, ed. George A. Buttrick, et al., (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1962), p. 517.

17.

William Foxwell Albright, “New Light on the Early History of Phoenician Colonization,” Bulletin of American Schools of Oriental Research 83 (1941), pp. 14–23.

18.

Cross, “Working With No Data,” in Semitic and Egyptian Studies: Presented to Thomas O. Lambdin, ed. David M. Golomb (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1987) p. 71.

19.

Elisha Linder, “The Maritime Installation of Tharros (Sardinia): A Recent Discovery,” Estratta da: Rivista Di Studi Fenici, vol. 15, no. 1 (1987), p. 50.