The third fieldwork campaign of the S’Urachi Project took place over five weeks in July 2015, and was dedicated to three complementing fieldwork activities. These included first of all continued excavation in areas D and E outside the outer defensive wall or antemurale of the nuraghe, secondly intensive and quantitative collections of surface finds in the wider surroundings of the site, and thirdly a standing-building survey of the outer nuraghe wall.

In area D, work focused on the zone below tower 1 of the antemurale, that is comprised westward by the defensive wall itself, and toward the S by the so-called ‘muro isodomo’. The latter was shown to represent a later construction built against tower 1 that defined an open area with a cobbled floor, which suggests it was an open space, i.e. courtyard. Phoenician finds on the floor suggest a date around the 7th to 6th century BC. West of the tower, an enclosed room was found with a hearth, which may similarly be dated tentatively to the 6th century BC.

In area E, work continued in the open space in front of the antemurale, where remarkably large numbers of pottery and animal bone continued to be found. Butchering marks on the bones have confirmed the interpretation of this deposit as a domestic midden. The ongoing excavations showed moreover that in an earlier phase, probably around the 6th or 7th century BC, a stream of about 4m wide had run here more or less in parallel to the antemurale. It was subsequently channeled by the construction of two parallel embankments, and it was this channel that at some point in the 6th or 5th century began to be backfilled with domestic trash.

Meticulous recording of the standing outer wall of the nuraghe has given insight into the construction process, showing that he towers were first built, and that there were originally ten of them, three of which have since been destroyed. The connecting walls were built later, using a ramp and platforms anchored into the walls. The towers and ramparts were topped by a parapet.
A large area of ca. 2.5 Ha roughly to the N and E of the nuraghe was systematically investigated by collecting surface finds from sample points on a 20×20m grid. Punic material was attested more or less throughout the area, while the northern end yielded more Roman finds. Nuragic pottery of Iron Age date was encountered near the Su Padrigheddu site (see Fasti site #2585). Overall, the finds suggest that at least in the central and later centuries of the first millennium BC the wider area of S’Urachi was occupied up to about 150m distance from the nuraghe.