The Sardinian coast, an uninhabitaded place of historical transformations

The Sardinian coast have been the scene of continuous transformations linked to the activity and the history of human population, contrary to what might suggest a coastal area characterized for a long time by a low settlement density. The boundary space between land and sea was the only border between the island of Sardinia and the ‘outside’ and a place of continuous exchange and change with positive or negative consequences: trade between Nuragic and Mycenaean people, conquest by Romans, continuous raids of Arabs (VII-VIII sec. AD) and then Ottomans (XVI sec.), until recent changes for touristic purposes. The signs of these modifications on the landscape are at times visible, other times partially or totally disappeared. All these signs affect territories not only at the landscape scale, but also the architectural and material scale. In fact, the industrial construction techniques have influenced design, replacing traditional materials and techniques. The use of local stone represented the land mark on the human landscape, today instead characterized by materials, techniques and architectural styles homogeneous along the Sardinian and Mediterranean coast. For research purposes, but even more for the dissemination of knowledge, the representation of these transformations still presents several operating difficulties, especially for the fact that adding spatial and temporal information involves confusion. The description of these sequences of signs as historical layers is an important challenge to promote an aware observation of the cultural landscape, not only among tourists, but also among local people. Thus, the goal of the work is to propose solutions for the representation of places, examining a part of the Sardinian western coast as a case study. These outcomes can have implications for the study of the ‘land as palimpsest’ and also in order to raise the awareness of cultural heritage. The paper will present the results of the case study analysis, in terms of graphical representation; secondly, it will try to propose ICT tools that can be integrated with territorial analysis and facilitate the comprehension of the landscape.