Thread by @DrWatson_writer

**PRENURAGIC SARDINIA – part 2: domus de janas**

This thread follows the introductory part regarding Prenuragic cultures. You may want to check that one first, if you didn't already.

Domus de janas (=houses of the fairies) are old tombs typical of the Culture of Ozieri in Sardinia. They get their name from the Sardinian folk tale that wants small fairies (janas) to inhabit them.

They are excavated in the rock and count up to 2,400+ in the whole --

-Island, not considering the ones which are still unknown. They were collective tombs, as the findings confirmed. Each domus could have several rooms, even consecutive, all of them accessible through a very small hole. Two of the biggest ones (Anghelu Ruju near Alghero ⬇️ and-

-Montessu in Villaperuccio ⬇️) count up to 30-40 tombs each.

The person was buried in a fetal position, painted in red ochre and surrounded by jewels, food, religious statuettes and objects from their everyday job. One man was buried with many pickaxes' heads, hinting he could-

-have been a constructor of domus de janas, whose pickaxes' signs are visible in the walls.

We don't know much about the funerary rituals but the discovery of fire pits led historians to think it included some fire burning.

The central room could be more or less large and many examples show pillars to hold up the ceiling, often in a "house shape". Consider this was all excavated in the stone, not built afterwards.

Domus de janas were heavily decorated and painted, especially with red ochre.

We find symbols, the same figure that we find in menhirs and interpreted as a dying man upside down. We then find many references to the bull, sculpted or drawn over entrances, pillars, walls. It's not completely clear what its meaning was: strength? Death? Some talk of the -

-resemblance with the shape of the uterus, and therefore another reference to the Mother Goddess and going back to the Mother after death. Later Tombs of the Giants have the same shape...

Another important feature is the false door. It's a door sculpted on the rock, that we find

-later on in the sculpted rocks of the tombs of the giants. It's thought to represent the entrance to the afterlife, and whoever read something of Egyptian archaeology surely sees the resemblance already. In fact, there aren't other cultures in the Mediterranean area which have-

-this feature, hinting at close contacts between the two peoples.

For comparison, the domus de janas were built in Sardinia when in Egypt there was the Protodynastic Period (Ancient Kingdom started in 2700BCE conventionally, the Culture of Ozieri ends in 2800BCE).

It is also interesting to note that "door" in Sardinian is "ianna". It has in fact been proposed that the name domus de janas has something to do with the Sardinian ianna.

Some domus have been still in use in more recent times. It's the example of Sant'Andrea Priu in Bonorva ⬇️

-which has been used in Roman and Byzantine times as a church and also repainted. This was especially used during the persecution of Christians in Roman times.

📸 All credits are in pictures, when present. It's not always possible to find out.