Sant’Antioco, Phoenician city

Sant’Antioco, an island in the island. Located about 90 km from Cagliari, it is situated in the south-west coast of Sardinia. It is connected to the mainland by an isthmus, built by the Carthaginians and completed by the Romans. The island is immersed in a wild and pleasant territory at the same time. The most important inhabited center is the town of the same name.

Colorful, compact, it was founded by the Phoenicians around 750 BC. Flourishing in the Carthaginian age, even after the Roman conquest (238 BC), it maintained its importance thanks to the trade in minerals of the Iglesiente territory, so much so that it was elevated, probably during the first century AD, to the status of municipium.

The tour that we propose is an exceptional journey through time, temporal leaps between centuries of history and populations that have inhabited this territory of Sardinia.

We will visit the Tophet, the fascinating necropolis-sanctuary, where, by tradition, the inhabitants of the Phoenician and Punic centers of the western Mediterranean, buried the stillborn babies and the infants dead immediately after birth. The Hypogeum Village, home to the Punic necropolis of Sulky, excavated between the 6th and 3rd centuries BC C. from the Carthaginians. You will pass from archeology to legendary tradition, on a journey through ancient history and textile art, with a visit to the workshop of Chiara Vigo, the only weaver in the world to carry on the tradition of fine silk (byssus), the silk of the sea, from which they obtained precious and expensive fabrics. Among its looms, you will discover the ancient art of weaving threads, between legends and magic. An ancient art that has been handed down for centuries, only orally.

The tour is suitable for everyone, lovers of history, archeology and ancient traditions. For anyone who wants to know the fascinating and ancient art of weaving, byssus, between legends and magic.

Sant’Antioco stands on the remains of Sulki, one of the oldest cities in the western Mediterranean. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it came under the dominion of the Vandals, a Germanic population established in North Africa. Their passage on the island of Sant’Antioco is highlighted by a particular burial, inside which the remains of a man buried with his horse were found. The name derives from the patron saint of Sardinia, an African martyr exiled in these lands, whose remains, true or presumed, were found in the catacombs on the island. The basilica is also dedicated to the saint, mentioned for the first time in 1089.