This ancient city in Sardinia was home to pirates—and is an archaeology lover’s dream

Perched at the edge of a narrow peninsula in southern Sardinia, the ancient city of Nora is exposed to the elements. Wind, sun, salty air, and for centuries, even pirates. From every vantage point of the port city, residents and visitors can take in views of the Mediterranean Sea, which made Nora a thriving trade hub during the 8th century B.C.

Nora doesn’t have the name recognition, impressive towering structures, or crowds of tourists like Pompeii or Ephesus. The ancient city, now a significant archaeological site, offers history buffs a rare glimpse of over 1,500 years of life in the ancient Sardinian city—a 43-minute drive from Cagliari. 

(Seven historic islands in Europe you shouldn't miss.)

The complex history of Nora

The theater, marketplace, bath complex, old roads, and a temple—most of what’s above ground at Nora—date to the Roman period from 238 B.C. to the 5th century A.D. Visiting the site with a tour guide, like Maria Paola Loi at FA Travel, can help visitors understand the history of Nora.

During the Bronze Age, Sardinia was home to the Nuragic people, a seafaring society that left behind thousands of prehistoric stone structures—big cone-shaped towers called Nuraghi—scattered across the island’s hills. Although there’s no trace of the Nuragic civilization in Nora today, researchers believe the Nuragic people were the first inhabitants in this area.

“The theory is that these people were a fleet of pirates from different Mediterranean islands,” says Loi. “[Around the Iron Age], these megalithic cultures vanished for unexplainable reasons.” By the 8th century B.C., the site had started to take shape as a Phoenician trading outpost. Over a 1,500-year period, Nora was controlled by the Phoenicians, followed by the Carthaginians, and then the Romans after 238 B.C. It was also inhabited by vandals during the mid-5th century, the Byzantines in 535 A.D., and then abandoned around the 8th century due to Arab raids. 

(The Vandals sacked Rome, but do they deserve their reputation?)

At its peak, Nora was home to 8,000 inhabitants. For centuries, Nora was one of the most important settlements in the western Mediterranean. “Nora, like no other ancient city, is at a minimal distance between Italy, Sicily, Africa, and Spain,” says Jacopo Bonetto, professor of classical archaeology at the University of Padova, who has coordinated Nora’s research activities since 1990. “For this reason, it is the best site to study how relationships between different cultures and civilizations have built history.” 

During the Middle Ages, however, life along the Sardinian coast changed. “The shores of the island became really unsafe,” says Loi. Pirates from North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean frequently raided Nora, taking advantage of its vulnerable coastal position. Around the same time, the lagoons on the backside of the cape—now home to flocks of pink flamingos—were teaming with mosquitos. Residents contracted malaria, which spread quickly and continued to ravage the island until earnest efforts began to eradicate the disease in the late 1940s. 

To escape both disease and attack, Nora settlers fled inland. The nearby town of Pula flourished instead because of its location further inland on the island. Because of these dangers, Sardinians developed a fear of the sea, Loi told me. Even today, residents are much more likely to be shepherds, goatherders, cattle breeders, and miners, rather than fishermen, she says.

As a result, no modern settlements were ever built over the ruins of Nora, preserving it for future research, according to Bonetto. 

(These 3,000-year-old giants watched over the cemeteries of Sardinia.)

A living archaeological site

What makes Nora special is what’s happening beneath your feet. Since it was unearthed in 1952, archaeologists have continued to excavate the site’s historic connections to Romans, Phoenicians, and Carthaginians. Some of the artifacts from the site (like an inscribed stone known as the Nora Stele) are on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Cagliari.

Archaeologists have uncovered an ancient burial ground from the Phoenician-Punic period, with underground tombs completely intact, including pottery, jewelry, and other funerary goods that had never been disturbed. Bonetto calls this discovery, “The most important testimony of the foundation and life of the Phoenician settlement.” It’s the only known Phoenician necropolis in Sardinia that has been excavated using modern scientific methods, and it helps establish Nora as one of the oldest settlements—if not the oldest—on the island.

At many large archaeological sites, active digs are typically fenced off or otherwise kept separate from visitor routes for safety and preservation, but at Nora, you may be able to see archaeologists at work. According to Bonetto, one particularly exciting moment was when they unearthed a trove of 18 silver coins in pristine condition in the Roman Temple. It’s rare to experience a place where “the history of the city is written—and rewritten—every day. 

(The essential guide to visiting Italy’s Sardinia region)