We make our way through the lush Mediterranean maquis which still surrounds this site: one of the island’s best-known and most evocative nuraghic sacred areas.
A true village-sanctuary, a catalyst of the sacred energy so deeply felt by this ancient civilisation.
We come across a number of huts and a well temple encircled by a wall.
Some areas of the village were devoted to the production of bronze artefacts. During many years of archaeological explorations (the site was discovered in 1865) this sanctuary has yielded a great number of bronzes: rings, votive swords, bracelets and daggers. But above all the ‘bronzetti’: small bronze statuettes depicting personages of nuraghic times.
A fascinating array of these figures is on show at Cagliari’s National Archaeological Museum: warriors with spears, shields and helmets with long curved horns, archers, supplicants and people at prayer.
Some of the most popular are the so-called ‘demonic beings’: individuals with four eyes, four arms, two shields.
They are interpreted as the expression of the mythical-religious vision which animated the nuraghic universe.