AudioturRomanzesu archaeological area - Nuragic Sanctuary Village

BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE NURAGIC CIVILIZATION

The term "nuragico / nuragica" identifies every aspect of one of the most important Mediterranean civilizations of proto - historic era; indigenous civilization of ancient Sardinia, which between the mid - Bronze age and the early Iron Age (XVII - IX / VIII century BC) will produce the most imposing and articulated monumental architectural heritage in stone from the central - western Mediterranean.

First, the nuraghe, the mighty truncated cone-shaped tower, with internal chambers covered with a false dome (thòlos) in its most classic form; this is the eponymous monument, from which this civilization derives the name, re-proposed in many variations in the dimensions and in the layouts of the plan: from the simple single tower to the more complex aggregates of 4 and 5 side towers built around the central one.

The nuraghe is so widespread in the island territory (still today around 8000 specimens are preserved) to indelibly characterize the Sardinian landscape. Next to the nuraghi, hundreds of collective megalithic burials, the so-called tombs of giants and sacred buildings: well temples, megaron temples, sacred sources and just to mention the most common types; finally, a myriad of villages, with or without nuraghe, sometimes made up of hundreds of houses.

An imposing monumental patrimony realized without the use of cement mortars and using indifferently the wide variety of stone material present on the island: granites, basalts, trachytes, limestone, shale, etc .; with walls that in some sacred buildings reach very high aesthetic levels in the so-called isodomic technique, where fragments, perfectly cut and adherent, are arranged along very regular rows.

Civilization of extraordinary builders, farmers and breeders, of highly skilled artisans with a rich and refined metallurgical bronze production consisting of weapons, tools, containers, ornaments and figured bronzes. The latter, the famous small bronzes, reproduce variously dressed male and female characters: warriors, tribal chiefs, offerers, etc .; next to the rich anthropomorphic production to signal a vast repertoire of votive boats and animals.

Civilization of the first European sculptors, with the statues of the so-called "giants of Monte Prama" - from the place of discovery in the Oristano area - they realize a large statuary in stone (over 2 meters high) which clearly precedes the archaic Greek one of the same kind; probably a civilization of navigators: the island (between the 14th and 9th centuries and 8th century BC) is actively immersed in a dense network of cultural and commercial traffic with the eastern and western Mediterranean, as amply documented by extra-island archaeological finds, found in Sardinia and from nuragic materials, recovered overseas from Cyprus and Crete to Cadiz and Carthage and in large numbers, in the Italian peninsula.