OLBIA, on the north-east coast of Sardinia, was a major Greek and Roman port, and survived as a more modest provincial town, Terranova, under Spanish rule. The place is not particularly eloquent of its past. Eroded arches of the Roman aqueduct stretch to the north-west, and on the site of an early necropolis there is the fine early twelfth-century church of San Simpliciano. Now entered from the east, this may have been planned with apses at either end, as at Porto Torres; classical spoil was put to use and the initial stone structure was heightened, so that a second blind arcade, largely of brick, rises above the original. Fine as it is, the church is outshone by perhaps two dozen others on the island. Olbia’s claims on the tourist are owed to the discovery, when a road was tunnelled through the site of the former harbour, of a remarkable number of ancient boats.
Pozzo Sa Testa.
Some of these are housed in the impressive new museum on the waterfront, which was built to display a sequence of local finds ranging from the Bronze Age of the early nuraghi to the time of the Phoenicians and their successors. Fortunately, the building was ambitious enough in size to accommodate such of the vessels as have thus far been prepared for public view. There are no fewer than four great oaken masts of boats of the time of Nero, rare survivals. Shown with these in the first room are two Vandal ships of the sixth century, compelling evidence of the new power that had seized the North African underbelly of imperial Rome and wrought havoc throughout the western Mediterranean. The outer timbers are of oak, the joists, attached to them by both copper and wooden nails, of pine. The larger of the vessels was found in two sections, broken to the right of the keel, which itself had already had to be repaired. The Roman ships await attention, but a small medieval boat is already shown, its dimensions implying the level of silt that had choked the harbour and thus preserved the hulks of the earlier vessels.
The modern ferry port of Olbia is matched by the industrial zone that has crept round the bay, almost engulfing the beautiful nuragic well, Sa Testa, the path to which is behind a supermarket, Centrocash. The small enclosure leading to the steps down to the water seems a miraculous survival. So in a different way is the Nuraghe Cabu Abbas on an outlier of the range of hills to the north, the early inhabitants of which must have been able to monitor movements on the roadstead.