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Think of Sardinia and you might think of its Emerald Coast, playground of Italy’s super-rich, most famously Silvio Berlusconi, who entertains guests with a remote-control volcano. But the thong-clad hordes are only the most recent invaders of this beautiful, rugged isle, just a little larger than Wales, that sits like a stepp­ing stone between Europe and Africa. Scratch Sardinia’s arid surface and a rich history of civilisation flows out, one that can be traced back to the Neolithic and encompasses almost every major power of the region in the past 6,000 years.

Over the course of its hist­ory, Sardinia’s guest book (an important feature of every tourist destination in the country) has been signed by Italians, Spaniards, Berbers, Moors, Byzantines, Vandals, Romans, Phœnicians and innumerable permut­ations of the above, many of whom left artefacts and architecture behind when they left. But these were all johnny-come-latelys compared to the original, elusive Sards.

Some of the earliest signs of human culture on the island can be found amongst the Domus de Janas, or fairy tombs, cut into the walls of a rocky green valley at Montessu in the southwest. Dating from about 3400 BC, the 35 tombs discovered in this natural amphitheatre command a god’s-eye view of the wide plain surrounding modern-day Villaperuccio, whose backyards are dotted with enormous menhirs erected during the same period. What little is known about the people who lived and died here can be found carved into the walls of the two most impressive tombs at the site, commanding spectacular vistas from the eastern and western ends of the valley’s two arms.

A steep, rocky path, part of it comprising the original road laid by the tomb-builders, approaches the valley and you soon start to see the small, dark tomb entrances dotted like swall­ows’ nests amongst the rock walls. The eastern­most tomb is cut horizontally into the soft rock of the cliff face. Origin­ally composed of two sections, the burial space itself and an ante­chamber for offerings from the living, this ‘oven’ tomb’s domed ceiling collapsed centuries ago and was stolen by farmers or shepherds, revealing an elliptical curved space whose walls are covered with intricate carvings.

Spirals cover the rear and side walls; these were associated with a female deity and the eternal cycle of life and death (on average a mere 20 to 30 years for people at the time) and perhaps symbolic rebirth. Some patches of wall are still stained red with ochre, suggesting that this was a womb as well as a tomb. The goddess was also closely connected to water, a precious commodity for all ancient peoples, raising the question of whether the spirals decorating the tomb might represent whorls or eddies on the water’s surface. Statues of the goddess herself show an angular, cruciform figure with two jutting breasts, whose outline can be seen imprinted into the walls of other tombs at the site. Also cut into the wall here are what might be a false doorway – another symbol, perhaps, for the entrance into a new life or afterlife – and a representation of wooden supports, intended to make this home for the dead reflect the homes of the living below. The outer chamber of the tomb is also decorated with multiple vertical tongues that have been interpreted as teeth (maybe to ward off grave-robbers or spirits) bull horns, (symbol of the masculine deity) or perhaps just Neolithic bunting.

Over on the western arm of the valley is an older tomb, this one dug vertically, and more laboriously, into the rock floor. Dropping down into the cool, cramped cave, checking first for signs of scurrying critters, you are instantly aware that this was a place of death. Very little sunlight has struck these walls in millennia, but there is just enough light to make out a series of elegant and striking bull horn motifs carved into them, one of which forms the step into and out of the tomb – the bull god carries us from life into death and, for the lucky ones, back again. Bull motifs can also be seen at another necropolis site from the same period, Anghelu Ruju in northwest Sardinia, and appear throughout the Anatolian and Mediterranean region – the ‘sacred cow’ was as vital as water to these early agricultural societies.

These two key tombs at Montessu were family tombs, probably belonging to the rulers of the community below, and would have contained many generations of dead. It’s thought that before interment bodies were stripped of flesh, perhaps cleaned by animals in a form of excarnation similar to that still carried out in Tibet and Iran. Over 100 skeletons were found inside the bull tomb, and archæologists speculate that once it was filled the previous inhabitants would be removed to make way for new bones. The tomb builders certainly respected their dead, but they weren’t precious. Additionally, many of the larger tombs at both Montessu and Anghelu Ruju were reused by later cultures as homes for the living. Either unaware or unconcerned by their previous funerary function, these squatters moved in and redecorated, carving out doorways, windows and, in the case of Roman settlers 3,000 years later, installing columns and statuary.

Who these first tomb-building Sardinians were may never be known. Archæologists refer to them broadly as the Ozieri culture, after beakers and other artefacts found near the town of Ozieri, and they’re thought to have reached the island from the surrounding mainlands of Italy, Spain, even Greece or Turkey. Their culture was superseded about two millennia later by another that left behind an incredible wealth of archæological and architectural evid­ence but remains barely less mysterious as a people. Even the origin of their name, the Nuragici or Nuragic people, remains uncertain, though it may stem from the Sardinian words for piles of stones or mounds, nurra, which is what many of their great towers were before being excavated. There are as many as 7,000 surviving Nuragic sites – from towers and fortresses to homes, wells and graves – scattered all over Sardinia, and it’s estimated that at their peak in the late Bronze Age, there were over 20,000.

Despite the vast number of sites on the island, it wasn’t until the mid-20th century that any systematic attempt to unearth and connect them was made. It was a Sardinian archæologist, Giovanni Lilliu, who in 1951 began excavating a prominent mound on a plateau next to the town of Barumini. What Lilliu and his team found after six years of digging was an enormous and ancient fortified palace, surrounded by a large village.

Visiting the site today, it’s hard to believe that the central tower, which stands over 18m (60ft) tall and has walls 7m (23ft) thick, was built over 3,500 years ago – it would be impressive if it had been built in AD 1600, let alone 1600 BC. The tower is constructed from basalt rocks, the largest weighing three tonnes, with smaller stones filling in the gaps where later cultures would use cement. Smaller towers were added at each cardinal point in about 1500 BC, and around them was built another 8m (26ft)-high wall. Access to the three-story central tower was gained only via a small doorway 8m up, reached using a ladder on a rope: although also a home, this was, first and foremost, a fortress.

The sheer scale of the construction is overwhelming; it’s no wonder that this and other Nuragic structures like the long “Giants’ Tomb” burial chambers, with their distinctive, menhir-like central standing stones and curved, taurine (bulls again) entrances, were attributed to a race of titans. Rumours persist that archæologists found skeletal remnants of these giants during the excavation of the site, and that the discovery has been kept secret by the Vatican – a conspiracy theory that perhaps says something about Sardinia’s relationship to mainland Italy.

But it’s not all about size: there’s an innate elegance and intelligence to the structure that is hard to ignore. The Nuragic people have left no trace of their writing behind – if they used papyri they all appear to have rotted away – but they must have employed some means of calculating and communicating measure­ments, because all of the towers at Barumini are built to the same proportions. Sophisticated architect­ural and engineering skills must have been employed throughout the construction pro­cess: the top of each tower was widened using intric­ately fitted buttress­ing, forming bulbous turrets that have since fallen away but can be seen in contemporary models found in the surrounding area. The positioning and orientation of each tower was also carefully thought through: the central tower sits above a 20m (66ft) well which is fed by a still-active spring; the south tower, which caught the most sunlight, and so was the warmest, was used for living and sleeping, while the north, the coolest, was used to preserve food. The doorway to the central tower also points south, allowing it to draw in the most light. The inside of each tower was covered with insulating clay, while the floors and carved benches were covered in cork for extra comfort.

That this fortress palace was constructed to house a royal or noble family is beyond doubt, but who exactly they were defending themselves from nobody knows. Additional layers of fortification, from arrow slits to thicker walls, were added to the building over the centuries, until it was abandoned at the end of the Nuragic period in about 600 BC. The island probably came under regular attack, given its position at the centre of the Mediterranean, though the invaders at Barumini weren’t necessarily from other lands. As my host Massimo wryly pointed out, generations-long feuds still exist between neighbouring towns in Sardinia, so the Nuragici were likely to have been as busy fighting each other as they were invaders.

The village surrounding the keep began to take form in about 1300 BC. It’s a densely packed site; stone paths wind between the well-preserved remains of each building, and it’s not hard to imagine the sounds of clacking stone, chopping wood, bleating goats and lowing cattle that would have been heard here. Houses were built with circular stone bases and wooden roofs, and by 800–700 BC had become complex multi-roomed affairs. The larger buildings incorporate stone tubs to collect rain water for drinking and bathing, but also probably for spiritual purposes: the water goddess-worship associated with Montessu survived in some form into the Nuragic period.

My own doubts about the spiritual role of water for the Nuragic people were swiftly dispelled by a visit to perhaps the most stunning, and cert­ainly best preserved, of all their surviving structures, the goddess well at Santa Cristina, near Paulilatino in the island’s mid-west. Part of a large settlement that includes a tower and a large, circular meeting hall, the well was built in about 1200 BC, at the height of the Nuragic civilisation. It has been immaculately preserved, ironically thanks to Christian monks who, in the 12th century AD, buried it to prevent the locals from worshipping there. The site was re-discovered in 1967 when a major road was due to be built over it. A workman noticed a round hole at ground level and contacted Giovanni Lilliu, who is said to have wept as the full beauty of the site was revealed.

A trapezoidal entrance at ground level contains 24 steep steps leading about 7m (23ft) down into the earth, where a round pool is still filled by trickling spring water. Twelve steps cut into the ceiling echo the 24 below, and a small round hole directly above the water lets light in from above. The well’s basalt steps and curved shaft walls are so precisely carved that it’s hard to believe that the site hasn’t been reconstructed in modern times, yet it sits now just as it did over 3,000 years ago.

Curving around the well’s surface entrance in a partial ellipse are two low walls that would once have formed a domed enclosure, entered a few metres in front of the well’s steps. From above, the entire structure can be seen as repre­senting the female genitalia, making the well a symbolic womb of the mother goddess who provided the Nuragici with water and life. As my host put it, this was the stairway to heaven. Santa Cristina would be amazing if it was the only Nuragic well on Sardinia, but it is only the best-preserved. There are some 30 on the island, including Su Tempiesu in the East and Sa Testa in the North East, each slightly different in character and construction, but all using the same feminine ground plan.

As if Santa Cristina wasn’t spectacular enough already, it holds a heavenly secret. At the spring and autumn equinoxes, the Sun at its highest point penetrates the well, perfectly illumin­ating the steps and the water below. Then, every 18 years and six months, in December, the Moon sits directly over the smaller hole above the well’s vert­ical shaft, its light reflected in the pool beneath it. These astronomical alignments provide further ammunition for those who argue that the Nuragici had a written language, even if no trace of it survives.

What rites or practices were conducted here we can only imagine. The remains of hundreds of huts have been found around the site, as well as statues, ceramic fragments and a trepanned skull. The site’s guide sugg­ested that the well’s priests were also surgeons, and that this was a Bronze Age Lourdes, while the equinoctal alignments provide clues as to the ritualised use of the well, perhaps as a place of symbolic rebirth. Some consider the lunar alignment to be a remarkable coincidence, but even so, the sight of the Moon’s light beaming down the well shaft and reflected in its waters would have been a powerful, once-in-a-short-lifetime event for most people at the time, and may have been an initiatory secret for whoever worshipped here.

The Nuragici, whoever they were, haunt Sardinia in life and death, birth and rebirth. It’s almost impossible to visit the island without stumbling over signs of their existence, most of which are unprotected and unexplored. With systematic excavations only beginning so recently, there’s no doubt that more sites on the scale of the fortress at Barumini or with the beauty of Santa Cristina remain to be found. Perhaps one day we will find examples of Nuragic writing. Unfortunately however, there’s no money in Sardinia’s ancient history and already some of it is under threat: the Phœnician necropolis of Tuvixeddu in Cagliari, encroached upon by luxury condominiums, is just one case in point. Sardinia has endured many invasions and housed many civilis­ations, but with quick cash to be made from its future and very little to be gleaned from its past, it’s unclear how much of its history will survive, or how much is left to be uncovered.



A big thanks to my Sardinian hosts Massimo Spiga & Elisabetta Randaccio, and to my travelling companion Erik Davis.