A short distance from the necropolis at Sant’Andrea Priu (fig. 1) is the country church of Santa Lucia that is currently very different from what must have been its original form (figs. 2-3).

Fig. 1 - Location of the church of Santa Lucia (from Wikimapia; reprocessed by M.G. Arru).

Fig. 2 - The church of S. Lucia (photo by Giuseppe Oppo, from http://wikimapia.org/18316023/it/Chiesa-campestre-di-Santa-Lucia#/photo/1548204).

Fig. 3 - Detail of the church of S. Lucia (photo by Cinzia Olianas, http://www.panoramio.com/photo/73745937).

The age of the church is confirmed in the toponym “Piana di Santa Lucia”, i.e. The plain that stretches for at least four kilometres to the north, as far as Funtana Sansa, where the Spring of Santa Lucia sprang. Around the church where there was also a group of houses (cumbessias), a shelter for pilgrims on the days of the annual festival in honour of the saint, as seen in the ruins of the walls foundations still visible in the courtyard.

In 1998, in a boundary wall opposite the church of Santa Lucia, a trachyte votive stone was found (70 cm x 30 circa) with an inscription engraved on two lines (fig. 4):

INC(ipit) PET(ia) EC(c)L(esiae) TURR(itanae)
Start of parcel of land (petia) of the Turritanian Church

In Medieval Latin, the term petia is widely witnessed and is also found in the condaghe of San Pietro di Sorres (sheet 320), where a pecjiu de terra is quoted. It may therefore be probable that the land that stretches north of the church of Santa Lucia up to the church of San Andrea Priu, was part of the property of the Bishop's curia of Sorres and after being cancelled in 1503, was incorporated among the assets of the Turritanian ecclesia.

Fig. 4 - Santa Lucia, boundary stone. Bonorva Archaeological Museum (photo M.G. Arru).