Prehistory · Bronze Age to post-medieval · Loculi, Sardinia, Italy
Bronze Age votive sword fragment found under planned car park in Sardinia
The Nuragic sword lay in a 700-square-metre site in the village of Loculi, with remains running from the Bronze Age to post-medieval times.
Loculi, Italy Archaeologists working ahead of a new car park in Loculi, a village in eastern Sardinia, have found a fragment of a Nuragic votive sword. It comes from a site of about 700 square metres with remains from the Bronze Age to the post-medieval period. Italy's state heritage authority says the sword could point to a place of worship.
The Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the provinces of Sassari and Nuoro announced the finds. It and the village council will open the dig on Via San Pietro to residents and the press on 29 October 2026, from 9:30 to 13:00. This is the first of a planned series of open days.
Found while laying a gas pipe
The site came to light by chance in 2019. Archaeologists were checking the ground before work on a gas pipeline and a car park, so that machinery would not destroy what lay underneath. The village council stopped the works at once to protect the structures that had appeared.
Loculi has just over 500 inhabitants. It lies in the Baronia region, 34 km from Nuoro. The known ancient sites around the village lie in the countryside, between 2 and 15 km away. According to La Brújula Verde, Via San Pietro is the first extensive site found inside the built-up area itself.
The excavators have exposed several rectangular rooms, probably homes, along with perimeter walls and an outdoor oven. The finds include Nuragic pottery and fragments of Roman glass and pottery. There are also early medieval metal objects and lead clamps. The heritage authority describes the site as multi-layered, with several layers of occupation from different periods stacked on top of one another.
A sword made to be offered
The Nuragic civilisation dominated Sardinia in the Bronze Age. It takes its name from the nuraghi, stone towers found across the island. A University of Tübingen press release puts their number at almost 7,000, built between 1700 and 1100 BC.
Votive swords were not made for fighting. People left them in sanctuaries and other sacred places as gifts to a deity. A 2026 study of the Nuraghe Barru in south-central Sardinia found that swords of this type tend to be made of bronze with very little tin. Such bronze stays soft and is a poor choice for combat.
That University of Tübingen study was led by archaeometrist Silvia Amicone, working with the Soprintendenza of Cagliari. It appeared in the journal Open Archaeology. At Barru, next to a staircase, the team found a bronze sword 94 cm long, three blade-shaped objects and a lump of copper.
Other votive sword fragments are held in the National Archaeological Museum of Cagliari. One, from the sanctuary of Santa Vittoria di Serri, still has the spike at the base of its blade set in lead. The lead fixed the sword to a support. That suggests some of these swords were displayed upright.
The Soprintendenza is cautious about Loculi. It says only that the fragment could indicate a space dedicated to worship. The announcement does not say which layer the piece came from or what was found with it. Nor does it say whether the lead clamps are related to the sword.
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Other questions are open too. No laboratory dates have been published. The announcement speaks of historical continuity but does not say whether people lived there without a break or left and returned. It also does not say how many layers belong to each period.
The area around Loculi has been inhabited since the Neolithic, according to regional tourism material. Nearby are tombs cut into the rock and a dolmen at Santa Maria di Loculi. The tomb of the giants of s'Iscusorju lies about 2 km from the village centre, and the nuraghe Caraòcu still has a tower 5 metres high. Whether the people of Via San Pietro built these monuments remains to be seen.
The village council, led by mayor Alessandro Luche, has allocated €220,000 so far to the first investigations. Archaeologist Pina Corraine of the Soprintendenza holds the scientific direction of the dig. The Soprintendenza, headed by Monica Stochino, will add funds to finish the excavation, restore the finds, study the context and open the site to the public.
Sources (2)
- A Ritual Sword From the Bronze Age Turned Up on the Site of a Planned Parking Lot in Sardinia Revealing a Nuragic Settlement that Lasted Until the Middle Ages (La Brújula Verde)
- Loculi, un tesoro archeologico nel centro abitato: il 29 ottobre lo scavo di Via San Pietro apre al pubblico (Soprintendenza ABAP Sassari e Nuoro)
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