Nora – archaeological site

Nora’s story

The Phoenician emporium

Nora is remembered in literary sources as “the oldest city in Sardinia.” Its mythical foundation is attributed to the eponymous ecist Norace; however, except for the famous and very ancient “stele of Nora,” now preserved at the National Archaeological Museum in Cagliari and generally dated to the second half of the 9th to the first quarter of the 8th century B.C., in which mention is made of an unknown sacred area, the earliest archaeological evidence dates from the late 7th century B.C. In fact, to this period can be referred a series of post holes pertaining to tents and other temporary structures made of perishable materials that have recently been identified in the eastern sector of the peninsula, below the forum complex and the nearby “Roman Temple.” Such installations document a seasonal frequentation by Phoenician merchants, as part of a trade network that linked eastern populations with Sardinian populations producing metals and other raw materials. The settlement scenario changed significantly by the end of the 6th century B.C., when the whole of Sardinia fell definitively into the hands of the hegemonic power of Carthage.

The Punic center

The emporic settlement of a provisional character gave way to an articulated district of warehouses and dwellings, served by a rectilinear street axis, which was evidently designed according to criteria of functionality and modularity proper to advanced urban planning. During the same period, the city, whose port became the center of important trade routes, experienced a significant development of its monumental endowment, with the construction of a temple in the vicinity of the warehouses themselves and other sacred areas at the three main heights of the peninsula: the so-called “Temple of Tanit,” the sacred area of Coltellazzo and that of Sa Punta ‘e su Coloru (on which would later rise the Sanctuary of Aesculapius, the site of the discovery of some interesting terracotta statues depicting devotees of the health-giving deity). In the course of time the settlement went on extending westward, with the gradual development of new housing and craft districts in the direction of the ancient port inlet, now partly occupied by the fishpond behind the Is Fradis Minoris peninsula. The contemporary development of the chambered necropolis in the isthmus area and the tophet in the suburban sector, but also the intensive use of the quarries of the nearby Is Fradis Minoris peninsula, confirm the importance assumed by Nora in the Punic age until the initial beats of Roman rule.

The Roman city in the republican age

The city promptly entered Rome’s political orbit following the conquest of the island and the establishment of the province Sardinia et Corsica in 227 B.C.E., as attested by the extraordinary nucleus of silver didrachms issued by Urbe and other central-southern cities, associated with a terracotta mask, recently found in the sacred context of the so-called “Roman Temple”: the deposition of the coins and the mask can be attributed to a devotional act by a personage of absolute prominence in the political landscape of the nascent province. However, the decisive change in the administrative forms of the island was not matched by an immediate reform of local institutions, nor does the city seem to have undergone radical changes in its urban layout. In Roman times Nora thus experienced its first relevant phase of monumentalization only in the second half of the 1st century B.C., shortly after it was mentioned in Cicero’s oration Pro Scaurus, probably following its promotion to municipium civium Romanorum: this enabled it to achieve a prestigious political-administrative status that Pliny the Elder attributes in Sardinia only to nearby Cagliari. In fact, to this period dates the construction of the forum in the urban sector between the so-called “hill of Tanit” and the promontory of Coltellazzo, in a central area of the town, so much so that the building site operations entailed the systematic destruction and definitive disruption of the underlying warehouse district of archaic origin that had remained in use until then. Beyond what the poor state of preservation of the structures and the erosion of the southern portion of the square allow to reconstruct, because of its urban position, the internal organization of the spaces, the function of the individual buildings facing it and the very monumentality of the architectural ensemble, the forensic complex was to fully represent the acquisition of the new political-administrative status. The building intervention, strongly marked in this sense, changed the physiognomy of this sector of the built-up area for centuries, both architecturally and in terms of urban planning.

The Roman city in the imperial age

The monumental adjustment of the city center found its natural continuation during the early imperial age. In fact, the construction of the well-known masonry theater erected in the immediate vicinity of the forum, on the site of some older buildings, dates to the first century AD, if not already to the early Augustan age. It is the only preserved theater building in all of Sardinia, capable of holding up to 1100-1200 seats. However, this is not the only performance building in the town, since, at the mouth of the isthmus at the entrance to the town, the existence of a small amphitheater, of uncertain date, was also verified at the beginning of the 20th century, making Nora the only Sardinian center with both important structures. Other building interventions are reported during the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. The monumental center of the city went on to perfect its physiognomy during this period, thanks in part to the erection of numerous honorary statues dedicated to emperors and illustrious citizens, while, the opposite side of the city, in the direction of the harbor, became the site of a new regular quarter of house-shops, specially designed for the housing and commercial needs of the middle class.

The Severan age and the decades following it witnessed Nora’s most prosperous period, as evidenced by the growth of ceramic imports, the development of artistic production, especially mosaic, and the materialization of the most impressive phase of monumental development, with the realization of important infrastructural interventions (among which the completion of the paving of a large part of the road system provided with subfloor sewer conduits stands out) and such a significant number of public and private structures that cannot be compared in other periods of urban history. Between the end of the second and the first decades of the third century AD the forensic complex was first of all strengthened, with the restoration of the civic basilica, the construction of two imposing access arches and the enlargement of the square. As part of the old “historic center,” the construction of the imposing hexastyle temple, known as the “Roman Temple,” raised on the southeastern slopes of the so-called “hill of Tanit,” also dates to this phase. In addition, the public aqueduct was built, which fed the city castellum aquae with the fountain below, and three thermal baths: the Central Baths, the imposing Baths by the sea, and the more modest Small Baths, which perhaps arose for private use. At this time, abetted by the dislocation of the thermal facilities, a sort of “neighborhoodization” of city life occurred, thanks to the rise of new aggregative spaces no longer gravitating on the forum-theater axis. Then in the central-southern sector of the city there was a series of building interventions that led to the construction of two wealthy stately homes, including the so-called “House of the Tetrastyle Atrium.” But, by far, the urban sector most affected by the building renovations of this phase was the northwestern one, not only with the construction of thermal facilities such as the imposing Baths by the Sea, but also with changes in the house-shop district and with the construction of a large multifunctional complex of a commercial and residential nature (the so-called “macellum/horreum” or “insula A”). Unknown, on the other hand, is the location of the building from which comes a rare dedication Dis deabusque secundum interpretationem oraculi Clari Apollinis, probably datable to the age of Caracalla, which seems to respond to a precise directive from imperial power.

A certain economic and building vitality is also attested during the 4th century AD. In the eastern sector the Terme di Levante were built (or renovated), while on the southern tip the structure of the ancient “Sanctuary of Aesculapius” was monumentalized. The northwestern sector was once again the scene of impressive architectural achievements as well, with the doubling of the size of the so-called “macellum/horreum” and the surface expansion of the Small Baths, which was followed by the construction of a three-aisled Christian basilica probably as early as the next century. In the first half of the fifth century AD the restoration of the western portico of the forum and that of the city aqueduct, recorded by an inscription, document the last public building activities of the Roman city before the Vandal conquest. Even after this momentous historical change, the settlement nevertheless continued its life, albeit conditioned by a noticeable contraction of urban activities and spaces: the residential buildings of the central and northwestern districts continued at least in part to be used, albeit with noticeable variations in use and with frequent structural modifications, making use of the ancient road network, which was still substantially functional. The same trend of imports of African sealed pottery into the city denotes a certain recovery until the first decades of the 6th century AD, indirectly attesting to the efficiency of the port infrastructure even after the end of the ancient age.

The early medieval settlement

The city had to change its face decisively only from the 6th century, in the Byzantine era, when the Roman road network fell into neglect and the settlement thus took on a new appearance. Of the last phase of Nora’s life, a few building episodes are known that are variously distributed in the urban area, whose building density had by then become rather rarer than it once was. Of considerable importance from the point of view of the re-functionalization of the ancient buildings is the probable transformation into structures of a defensive character undergone by the cell of the forensic temple and the building complex of the Baths by the sea, of which the monumental grandeur and the favorable position for strategic purposes were exploited. However, these seem to have been rather circumscribed interventions, in which one can perhaps grasp the outcome of a certain contraction of urban life. Very well known is the passage in the Cosmographia of the Anonymous Ravennate, which in the late seventh century CE defines Nora as a mere praesidium. Little is known about the last years of Nora’s life and its final abandonment. The most recent evidence concerns the western sector of the peninsula: the last building to give way was probably the fortress carved out within the ancient Baths by the sea, which collapsed devastated by fire in the late 7th or in the 8th century CE. Deprived by then of adequate defensive structures, Nora thus had to succumb to the ruinous effects of the increasingly frequent Arab raids.

Historical Sources

Pausanias, X, 17, 4 (cf. Solinus, IV, 1-2): “After Aristaeus the Iberians passed into Sardinia, having Norax as their leader, and the city of Nora was built by them: this is the first city that is remembered there was on the island; they also say that Norax was the son of Eriteia born of Gerion and Mercury” (M. Perra).

Cicero, Pro Scaurus, in part. 6, 11: Quae quidem suspicio valuit etiam plus ob hanc causam quod, cum agerent parentalia Norenses omnesque suo more ex oppido exissent, tum illa est a liberto suspendisse se dicta.

Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, III, 7, 85: Celeberrimi in ea populorum Ilienses, Balari, Corsi, oppidorum XVIII Sulcitani, Valentini, Neapolitani, Vitenses, Caralitani civium R(omanorum) et Norenses, colonia autem una, quae vocatur ad Turrem Libisonis.

Itinerarium Antonini, O. Cuntz (ed.), 84, 7 – 85, 3: Item a Sulcis Nura m. p. LXVIIII: Tegula m. p. XXXIIII, Nura m. p. XXXV. In Caralis Nura m. p. XXII.

Anonymous Ravennate, Cosmographia, V, 26 (cf. Guidone, Geographica, 64): Nora praesidium.

Texts courtesy of University of Padua