**NURAGIC SARDINIA – part 2: Nuraghes**

Second thread in the Nuragic Sardinia series, following the peculiar Sardinian constructions of nuraghes.

📸 Reconstruction
Nuraghes belong to the category of megalithic constructions of the Mediterranean, with some resemblance to buildings in the Balearic Islands and in Malta, but still these sites are all different from each other.

Nuraghes are like primordial castles, structures that could be-
-as tall as 30 metres (nuraghe Arrubiu, when intact). There's no agreement on the origin of the name (that's because there's no agreement on "paleo-Sardinian" language), but one hypothesis sees in "nur" a paleo-Sardinian word for rock, as it's often found in toponyms.

📸Arrubiu
Nuraghe would then mean "bunch of rocks". This also leads to notice that calling those civilisations "Nuragic" might not be completely appropriate, since that's just the name of a kind of construction. They would just be Ancient Sardinians.

But what was their function? That's-
-still largely debated. It was probably not the same thing throughout history. Some older nuraghes appears surrounded by smaller constructions and huts; these have been associated to the "royal palaces" of the time, the house of the king or tribal chief who showed their -
-importance with a much bigger house than others. Everyday life's objects have been found inside.

Another kind is the simplest nuraghe, towers built in hard terrains, high mountains, cliffs, near the sea or overlooking a valley. These were alone and probably acted as watchtowers
The last hypothesis is that of the re-use of old nuraghes as temples or sacred places. Inside some of them we found votive statuettes and a few burials. It is thought the most important nuraghes have been turned into temples in the last centuries of the Nuragic Age, when-
-nuraghes weren't built anymore.

How do we know how they looked like, since most of them are in ruins now? Among the statuettes, we found small reproduction of nuraghes. We found them in nuraghes but also in the necropolis of Mont'e Prama. These statues tell us exactly how-
-they looked like.

There are several kinds of nuraghes but we can speak of a truncated cone shape, with two or more levels inside joined by an internal stairway. The ceiling of each room terminated in an elongated dome shape and the last one could be closed with branches.
Inside nuraghes there were also silos to stock goods.

Some nuraghes had a terrace on top and around it run a balcony with wooden external supports. We found them on the ground around the nuraghe of Barumini.

📸Is Paras, Isili
But nuraghes evolved during history. The first examples are called "proto-nuraghes" because they're different from all the others. They develop horizontally along a corridor.

The simplest nuraghes are the single-tower, or tholos type.

📸Albucciu, proto-nuraghe x2. Single tower
The name derives from the technique of using ever smaller stones to close the ceiling, since all these constructions are made in drywall, with bigger stones at the base and smaller ones to fill the holes.

We have then the nuraghes "tancato", made up of two towers of-
-different size and joined by enclosing walls.

The final evolution is the addition of more towers, enclosing walls and defence structures. They're the rarest and more complex, the tallest buildings of Bronze Age Mediterranean-

📸Santa Barbara, Villanova Truschedu, tancato
-after the pyramids. Nuraghe Arrubiu in Orroli is an example.

Later on, around these polilobate nuraghes, villages were built, as it happened around su Nuraxi of Barumini.

📸 Polilobate, Nuragic village
📸Nuraghe Losa, Abbasanta. It presents astronomical alignments with solstices and equinoxes. Trilobate.
📸 Santu Antine, Torralba. One of the biggest and important of the existing ones. Trilobate with central tower that could reach 25 metres.
📸Arrubiu, Orroli. One of the largest existing ones, its name means "the red one". Polilobate with village.
📸Su Nuraxi, Barumini, polilobate with village. I made an entire thread about it ⬇️

📸Santa Sabina, Silanus, single tower. The nuraghe next to the Byzantine church of Santa Sabina. The holiness of the nuraghes was still recognised in Middle Age, as many churches were built beside or over nuraghes and sacred wells.
There are around 7000-8000 nuraghes to this day, but many may be still hidden under millennia of mud and rocks, meaning the number is much higher than that. Some even say 10.000.

They resist millennia, even devastating fires.

📸Abbauddi, Scano Montiferro, after the fire of July

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More from @DrWatson_writer

23 Oct
**OTTOBRATA Iglesiente**

Special thread about the festival held in Iglesias each October for the festivity of the Virgin of Buon Cammino.

📸 Countryside church of Our Lady of Buon Cammino
The Ottobrata is my favourite festival, so here is a special thread about it. Religious festivals are typical Sardinian tradition, calling people from all around the neighbouring areas to celebrate. This happen(ed) every year in Iglesias, where the streets filled with stalls-
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19 Oct
**NURAGIC SARDINIA – part 1: the culture**

Thread about the most peculiar Sardinian culture, lasting several millennia and still largely unknown.

📸 Modern representation of a nuraghe
▪️ Timeline. The Nuragic period covers a millennium and a half and roughly divided in:

Nuragic I 1800-1450 BCE (Bronze Age)
Nuragic II 1450-1200 BCE
Nuragic III 1200-900 BCE
Nuragic IV 900-500 BCE (Iron Age)
Nuragic V 500-200 BCE (interaction with Punics)
▪️The name. We don't know for sure how the Nuragic people called themselves. The first mention of the inhabitants/island comes from the stele of Nora, written in Phoenician, and says SHRDN.

Nuragic derives instead from Nuraghes, the name of the most characteristic construction.
Read 23 tweets
13 Oct
**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 --
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6 Oct
**PRENURAGIC SARDINIA – part 1: the culture**

First thread regarding the history of Prenuragic Sardinia. Next part will be about the domus de janas.
The first human remains in Sardinia date back to the Mesolithic Age, that is 10,000-6,000 BCE, and found mostly in caves.

Around the 6,000BCE, the first Indo-Europeans arrived in Europe, bringing the tradition of agriculture and stationary life.
In the early Neolithic, we find corded ware in Sardinia too and a thorough use of the obsidian, precious stone found in great measure around Monte Arci. Sardinians traded it and created fine blades, with little effort to find the first matter.
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27 Sep
**GRAZIA DELEDDA – 150° anniversary of her birth**

Thread about the only Italian woman writer to have been awarded the Nobel prize in literature, and she was Sardinian.
Grazia Deledda was born in Nuoro on September 27, 1871. Nuoro is a town of central Sardinia, in the region where traditions are more radicated in the culture and society, but between the end of the XIX century and the beginning of the XX, Nuoro was a town with great artistic-
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Grazia realised rather quickly-
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22 Sep
**SU NURAXI**

Thread about the most famous nuraghe of Sardinia and its village, UNESCO world heritage site in Barumini.
Barumini rises in the fertile land of Marmilla, historically known for the cultivation of wheat from prehistoric times to Middle Age and still today. The nuraghe rises near the medieval castle of Las Plassas.

The area was inhabited since a very long time but the nuraghe-
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The area is filled with many other nuraghes and findings-
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