Sardinia
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Sardinia (Italian: Sardegna, Sardinian: Sardigna or Sardinna) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (after Sicily). The area of Sardinia is 24 090 square kilometers.
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History
Sardinia's earliest inhabitants developed a trade in obsidian, a stone used for the production of the first rough tools, and this activity brought Sardinians into contact with most of the Mediterranean peoples.
In the age from after the flood to the Roman Empire, the Nuragic civilization took shape on the island. Still today, more than 7,000 Nuraghe survive. It is speculated that the mysterious Shardana people landed in Sardinia coming from the eastern Mediterranean Sea, in about the 20th century BC. Very little is known about this people, whose name (which probably means the People of the Sea) has been found in some Egyptian inscriptions, and most hypotheses are developed following some linguistic studies; according to these, the town of Sardis (Lydia) would have been their starting point from which they would have reached the Tyrrhenian Sea, dividing into what were to become the Sardinians and the Etruscans.
However most theories regarding the original population of Sardinia have been formulated prior to genetics research and in the traditional frame of east-west movements. Genetics has now shown that Sardinians are a pre-Indo-European population different from all surrounding and much younger groups. The density, extensiveness and mere size of the architectural remains from the 'Neolithic', pointing to a considerable population of the island, together with recent theories about the location of the Hercules Columns, reverse the question into where Sardinians did land, or where the Shardana settled besides the known Egyptian destination.
Beginning around 1000 BC, Phoenician mariners established several ports on the Sardinian coast. In 509 BC, war broke out between the native Nuragic people and the Phoenician settlers. The settlers called for help from Carthage, and the island became a province in the Carthaginian empire. In 238 BC, after being defeated by the Roman Republic during the First Punic War, Carthage ceded Sardinia to Rome.
From 456 - 534, Sardinia was a part of the short-lived kingdom of the Vandals in North Africa, until reconquered by the Byzantine emperor Justinian. Under the Byzantines, the imperial representative was a judge who governed from the southern city of Caralis. Byzantine rule was practically nonexistent in the mountainous Barbagia region in the eastern part of the island, and an independent heathen kingdom persisted there from the sixth through ninth centuries.
Beginning in the eighth century, Arabs and Berbers began raiding Sardinia. Especially after the conquering of Sicily in 832, the Byzantines were unable to effectively defend their most distant province, and the provincial judge assumed independent authority. To provide for local defense, he divided the island into four Giudicati, Gallura, Logudoro, Arborea, and Caralis. By 900, these districts had become four independent constitutional monarchies. At various times, these fell under the sway of Genoa and Pisa. In 1323, the Kingdom of Aragon began a campaign to conquer Sardinia; the giudicato of Arborea successfully resisted this and for a time came to control nearly the entire island, but its last ruler Eleanor of Arborea, was eventually defeated by the Aragonese in the decisive Battle of Sanluri, June 30, 1409. The native population of the city of Alghero (S'Alighera in Sardinian, L'Alguer in Catalan) was expelled and the city repopulated by the Catalan invaders, whose descendants speak Catalan to this day.
Genetics
The original Nuraghe inhabitants of Sardinia, who are now concentrated in the interior of the island due to pressure from colonists, are a genetic anomaly in the region. They belong to Y-chromosome haplogroup I, which otherwise has high frequency only in Scandinavia and the Croatia-Bosnia area. Furthermore, the I haplogroup of the indigenous Sardinians is of the I1b1b subtype, which is unique to the island. The I1b1b haplogroup also has a low distribution in and around the Pyrenees, indicating some migration of Sardinians to that area. The Sardinian subtype is more closely related to the Croatian-Bosnian subtype than to the Scandinavian subtype. Sardinia also has a relatively high distribution of Y-chromosome haplogroup G, which results from people that migrated to Sardinia from Anatolia. Y-chromosome haplogroup G also has a relatively high concentration in and around the Pyrenees, again indicating migration of Sardinians to that area.
Geography
Sardinia, which is separated in the north from Corsica by the Strait of Bonifacio. The region also includes Asinara, Caprera, San Pietro, and La Maddalena islands. Cagliari is the capital of Sardinia, which is divided into the provinces of Cagliari, Nuoro, Sassari, and Oristano (named for their capitals). The highest point of the mostly mountainous island is Mt. Gennargentu (6,016 ft/1,834 m). The main agricultural area is the large Campidano Plain, located in the southwest and watered by the Manno and Tirso rivers. Natural pastures cover more than half the area of Sardinia; sheep and goats are widely raised. Wheat, barley, grapes, olives, cork, and tobacco are produced.
Related References
See Also
Categories: World geography | Mediterranean | Island | Europe | Italy
