The municipality of Oristano has an area of about 85 square kilometers where about 20 percent of the province’s population is concentrated (inhabitants: 31,698).
Its territory lies in the vast Campidano plain, stretching from the coast to inland areas and including the hamlets of Silì, Massama, Donigala Fenughedu, Nuraxinieddu, Masainas, San Quirico, and Torregrande. The territory where Oristano presently stands has been, since ancient times, a favorable place for human settlement: the hinterland, fertile for cultivation and ideal for grazing, the subsoil pregnant with minerals, and the rich and fishy brackish ponds allowed the island’s first inhabitants to develop an economically and culturally sound society.
If we add to this the physical characteristics of the area: centrality and ease of communication, and perhaps more important than the others the presence of the natural port of Dead Sea we can understand its development.
Excavation work in the Sinis Peninsula unearthed artifacts that provided a clear idea of the extent of trade conducted in the area over the centuries. Contacts with other Mediterranean peoples are evidenced by the presence of objects belonging to cultures different and distant from Tharros: amulets, talismans and divine figures of Egyptian origin, tableware from Campania, and Etruscan objects.
The richest and most important among the ancient Sardinian maritime cities lived for one thousand eight hundred years
Remains of nuragic villages date to the middle of the second millennium, the 8th century B.C. is the date of the Phoenician founding, 238 B.C. the passage under Roman rule, the Byzantine period when it became an episcopal seat, and finally the 8th-9th century A.D. the time of the great exodus probably due to the raids of Saracen pirates. After a brief return in 1052, comes the final abandonment around 1070. The history of the city, however, is linked to the Judicial period in which one of the most original and noble forms of statehood in the history of the Island developed in the city.
