The 2012 excavations took place on the northern part of the Pani Loriga hill denominated “Area B”.
The interventions continued the excavation of the partially exposed trenches/rooms (3bis, 5, 7, and 11) and opened two new trenches: 13 a continuation of trench 11 towards the west, and 14 situated outside the large structure at the south-western edge of the “plateau”.

In trench 3bis, the earliest beaten floor surface was exposed overlying the construction site levels characterising the entire area. The floor surface, as in rooms 4 and 1, was made of compact earth that contained an abundance of calcareous concretions and horizontally placed pottery fragments. As seen elsewhere on the site the structure was built in courses of stones, partially resting on the bedrock and partially on layers of dumped earth put down in order to raise and level the area. The creation of the beaten floor surface corresponds with the first occupation phase of the structure, which fragments of Attic pottery found in various rooms date to between c. 580-570 B.C.

In the adjacent trench 7, the removal of collapsed rubble revealed the structure’s abandonment and occupation layers, attested by abundant pottery and the fragments of a large tannur (cooking stand) positioned almost at the centre of the room. Among the most important finds are a glass paste scarab with a motif showing a deer hunt and several jugs, almost completely reconstructable, which find parallels in those found by Padova University in the Punic quarter below the Roman forum at Nora.

Unlike the other rooms, room 5 was not fully excavated. In 2010 and 2011, a large quantity of fragments of Bartoloni type “D3” and “D4” amphora buried under the collapse of the structure were recorded. Excavation continued below the beaten floor surface.

Uphill from these rooms were structures on a different alignment and of different sizes with respect to the others. In particular, those denominated trench 11 and 13, could have been a single large space (about 12 × 3.8 m) on an east-west alignment, or several rooms separated by walls that have yet to be identified as buried below accumulations of stones and layers of colluvial material, partially removed during this campaign.

Lastly, as well as the large structure identified in 2011, the clearing of the vegetation on the site revealed numerous other large blocks of rhyolite stone, some in a regular arrangement near the latter, lying over a large area.

Following a survey, which showed the existence of other rooms, a new trench (14) was opened in order to test the nature of the archaeological deposit. The extremely compact terrain rendered excavation difficult, however, as indicated by the survey, new walls were uncovered that will be investigated further.