I Fenici nella Sardegna sud-orientale: nuovi studi e ricerche a Cuccureddus-Villasimius (2016-2018)

After almost 30 years, during 2016-2018, a new research project was developed in the Phoenician settlement of Cuccureddus, located near Capo Carbonara, in the south-eastern part of Sardinia. Recent excavations have provided new data on the chronological and architectural articulation of the site, showing an important phase that develops during the 6th century BC. A great fire put end to the life of the settlement before the Carthaginian
hegemonic period, as documented by the layers of burnt mud-bricks and by the sudden destruction of the different sectors currently excavated. From the second half of the 4th century BC there was a new attendance at the site and only in subsequent Hellenistic,
Roman republican and Imperial periods will be developed a sanctuary dedicated to a female deity, built directly on the ruins of the archaic period. The new excavations and the parallel study of the unpublished materials of the old interventions of the years 1983-86, show a rich Phoenician phase and strengthen the perception of an archaic settlement strongly linked to the great commercial directives that connected Carthage, Sicily and Sardinia with the coastal centers of the Tyrrhenian Sea.