Solarussa

The name is disputed between the earth and the stone: some derive it from the colour of the soil — solum russus, red ground — and indeed in the fields there is still a place called Terra Arrubia; others from a pre-Roman word meaning a very stony hill, Zeppara grussa. It appears in writing around 1200 in the condaghe of Bonarcado, and in the tithe registers of the fourteenth century it is written Solarosa, Solarossa, Salarussa. The Roman road that led from Tharros to Macomer and Forum Traiani passed this way, with a posting station at Putz'e Angius of which some ruins and a well remain: that road was called the Via Maxima, Sa ia Majore in the Sardinian of the giudicati, and its name survives in two neighbouring villages, Massama and Siamaggiore.

On the eleventh of January 1388 the peace agreement between Eleonora d'Arborea and Peter IV of Aragon was signed at Solarussa. Plague had already passed twice through these parts, in the twelfth century and in 1378, and it had carried off an entire village: Bidda longa, which stood between Solarussa and Siamaggiore, is named in the Condaghe of Santa Maria di Bonarcado and then vanishes from the record. What has stayed is the wine: after the fall of the giudicato the marquises of Oristano pushed the vineyards, and Solarussa still holds several records for its vernaccia. Beside the village, until 1936, there was a marsh.