Olbia: train to the airport, archaeological investigations begin on the terrain of the route

Once the executive planning has been entrusted, the railway connection towards the airport is progressing rapidly which will allow the Costa Smeralda to be reached by train within two years. Archaeological investigations will begin shortly in the lands affected by the route.

Already explored with the use of drones and new remote sensing methodologies, in a few days, the eight hectare area, on which the tracks will be laid, will be thoroughly combed. The results of the surface analyses, which allowed the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape of the provinces of Sassari and Nuoro to express a positive opinion on the construction of the railway work, were not enough, however, to avoid the absence of (probable) remains of the Sa Tupia nuraghe, in the locality of the same name, now disappeared but documented in archaeological literature, together with the Filighe nuraghe, in the Colcò locality.

For this reason and because the area represents a high degree of archaeological risk due to presences referable to the Nuragic and Roman periods, the Superintendency has prescribed the execution of further targeted investigations on private land.

Five excavations of five square meters by two meters deep each, along the line of the route, approximately four kilometres, in which during the first phase of the investigation archaeological ceramic materials from the Roman period were identified, including a handle broken into several fragments of an imperial-age Dressel amphora . The execution of the new investigations is entrusted by the Italferr archeology planning department to the Florence Archeology Cooperative which has carried out many of the most impressive excavations in Italy, including those preliminary to the construction of the Rome metro, digging under the Altare della patria and under Imperial Forum.

RFI's work, which is among those financed by the Pnrr, costs 231 million euros and consists of the construction of a new stretch of approximately three and a half kilometers which, starting from the Golfo Aranci - Macomer line, stopping at the Olbia Terranova station, arrives at Costa Smeralda where a terminus station with two tracks will be built. The entire work also includes the connection to the line heading south, towards Chilivani, with a new stretch of track of approximately one kilometer and infrastructural strengthening interventions to promote integration with other modes of public transport.