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The ruins of the ancient city of Tharros, founded in the 8th century BC and abandoned in the 11th century AD, are situated on the southern tip of the Sinis peninsula, in the territory of Cabras.They are one of the most significant and impressive archaeological inheritances of the Mediterranean

The city of Tharros, located at the southern end of the Sinis Peninsula, in the area of San Giovanni, was founded either at the end of the 8th century BC or in the 7th century by the Phoenicians in an area that was inhabited as early as the Nuragic period. The ruins of the ancient city stand on the southern tip of the Sinis peninsula, in the territory of Cabras: a natural amphitheatre, overlooking the sea and bordered by the isthmus of Capo San Marco and the hills of the towns of San Giovanni di Sinis and su Murru Mannu (‘big snout’ in Sardinian), on top of which is the oldest remaining vestige of the Nuragic period, abandoned before the arrival of the Phoenicians. Remains of two nuraghi can also be found on the promontory of San Marco (one, called Baboe Cabitza, on the highest part of the promontory, the other near the inlet of Sa Naedda), while it has been hypothesised that another another is located at the base of the Torre di San Giovanni, one of the three towers in addition to the Torre Vecchia (or Torre di S. Marco) and the Torre del Sevo (Turr'e Seu), built between the 16th and 17th centuries at the behest of the Spanish crown, to protect the local population from the raids of pirates and Barbary corsairs from neighbouring North Africa. The Phoenician remains are two necropolises and the tophet, a cemetery sanctuary where urns containing the incinerated remains of sacrificed infants and animals were placed. With the arrival of the Carthaginians, cremation was accompanied by interment. Phoenician pit burials were reused and "chamber" tombs were added, marked by stelae with images of the deities Baal Hammon and Tanit. Most of the many artefacts (ceramics, terracotta, jewels, amulets, scarabs) that are now housed in major Sardinian, Italian and foreign museums come from these tombs. They were recovered during both the official and, above all, illegal excavations that have taken place in the necropolises of Tharros since at least 1830. Under Punic rule, the quarters of Tharros, including the artisanal district specialising in iron metallurgy in Montiferru, were organised in terraces on the hill of San Giovanni, which is where the defensive walls of the fortified town also originated. Before the Roman conquest (238 BC) civil buildings and places of worship were erected, including the ‘temple of the Doric half-columns’, a structure partly carved out of the natural rock face and partly built from large square blocks. This monument, largely dismantled in the early imperial age, would have consisted of a large terraced platform at the top of which stood a small temple or altar. On the other hand, in the ‘small temple K’, consisting of a portico and an altar with a cavetto frame, the reuse of two blocks engraved with Semitic letters, which probably belonged to a pre-existing ‘temple of Punic inscriptions’, is of particular note. The temple is fascinating with a Semitic-style layout, enclosed on three out of four sides by rock walls, in the centre of which was a columned (peristyle) enclosure, with a floor decorated with a polychrome mosaic. In addition, there is the temple of Demeter, which gets its name from a room where two terracottas representing the goddess were found, and the tetrastyle temple, which looks out over the sea, from which two reconstructed columns stand out, atop one of which is a Corinthian-Italic capital belonging to the temple. Many ‘pieces’ of the temples were reused over the years in the construction of other buildings, such as the basilica of Santa Giusta. In the following imperial age the city changed considerably. Extensive urban reorganisation was carried out, with the Su Murru Mannu district organised according to orthogonal schemes. Around the second century AD, the streets were paved in basalt and a very complex sewage system was set up for the disposal of waste water. A number of monumental public buildings were built, including three thermal baths, located in the central part of the city, close to each other. These buildings, made of bricks, were equipped with changing rooms, artificially heated rooms and others in which cold baths could be taken. In several cases the rooms were decorated with polychrome mosaics. The aqueduct, the remains of which are partly visible along the modern road leading to the excavations, also dates back to the imperial age. Connected to this is the so-called castellum aquae, a large building located in the centre of the town, at the intersection of the two main roads: a distribution reservoir, which was ‘waterproofed’ and divided into three naves by pillars. In front of it, the remains of a monumental fountain have been identified. Before the episcopal see was transferred to Oristano in 1071, which in the meantime had become the capital of the Judicate of Arborea, Tharros suffered a slow decline, one linked to Saracen raids and subsequent depopulation. Since the 17th century the funerary artefacts of the necropolis have been prey to treasure hunters. Some of the official excavations undertaken in the 19th century were no less damaging. In the following decades the plundering continued: fortunately, the ‘booty’ ended up partly in the British Museum in London, partly the archaeological museums of Cabras and Cagliari and in the Antiquarium Arborense in Oristano. After the scientific excavations in the 19th, investigations resumed uninterrupted in the mid-20th century, constantly turning up new discoveries.

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