It was the age of heroes and giants, who stood as sentinels of the centuries on the threshold between life and death, flesh and stone. It was the age of imperishable warriors, arcane guardians of a proud and millenary civilisation. Hypnotic eyes reached beyond the horizon towards the placid quartz beaches of the Sinis peninsula, preserving the sculpted memories and pride of Nuragic Sardinia. Their mighty arms recalled the valour of its ancient inhabitants. The statues of Mont’e Prama were silent by nature. But they spoke through a language of symbols, telling the story of the civilisation that had created them. The Nuragic people were named after their unique stone constructions, the nuraghes, but their true identity is shrouded in mystery.
Before the Giants of Mont’e Prama
Who were the ancient Sardinians? This is a question with many enigmas and complex implications. It is already difficult to describe any people through universal and immutable characteristics. Cultural references are always fleeting and constantly evolving, as elusive as the present moment. The things that come to mind are echoes of the past: historical figures and events; the origins of culture, customs and traditions; material evidence such as monuments and written sources. It is easy to see why this challenge is even greater for a civilisation lost to us for more than three thousand years, which we know mainly through stone, a key witness to past events.
The silent power of stone
However, the stone is mute before the passage of time, it only tells without speaking or writing. Before the Giants of Mont’e Prama there is a past of inevitable mystery, unknown and sometimes impenetrable, since it seems that neither engravings, nor paintings, nor parchments, nor anything else that time has given us was written by the Nuragic people. The existence of a Nuragic language is a controversial and debated topic.
Stone permeates every essence of ancient Sardinia. It is an instrument of daily life and at the same time an expression of the sacred. The material that history hands down to us. Moreover, the etymology explains the term, “nuragic”, with which we identify that civilisation. It derives from the pre-Indo-European nur, the linguistic root of nuraghes, piles of stone1, which the Sardinians built on a large number – there are more than eight thousand on the Island – and whose function is still unclear. Made of stone are the giants’ graves, monumental and scenic collective burials, the sacred wells used for water worship, and the Giants of Mont’e Prama. All this makes it possible to hypothesise the cultural aspects of the Nuragic civilisation, which otherwise could be totally obscure.
The Nuragic civilisation and a long cultural evolution
Faced the multiplicity of Sardinian lithic artefacts, bronze statuettes, Nuragic ships and much more, we have only a photography of the present moment. We observe all the archaeological evidence at the same time because we live today, after the entire cultural evolution of the ancient Sardinians. It is easy to fall into the trap, to think of the Nuragic civilisation like one of its monoliths: always the same, unchanged over the centuries. So, the Nuragics were both the people of the nuraghes and the Giants of Mont’e Prama, but at different times. When the hero-warriors were erected on the hills of Sinis, no more nuraghes had been built for at least three hundred years. And the giants’ graves were also a distant memory.
Similarly, the Nuragic civilisation did not arise from nowhere, but from all those so-called Pre-Nuragic cultures. They developed since the Neolithic (6th millennium BC) and were characterised by archaic cultural traits and recognisable identities. Thus, Around 6000 BC, someone drew anthropomorphic features on a ceramic vase found in the Grotta Verde in Alghero for the first time in Sardinia2. In Cuccuru s’Arrius cave of the Bonu Ighinu culture (4000 BC – 3400 BC), or in its later declinations, several sculptures of a female idol, the Sardinian mother goddess, were placed. Also during these millennia, manifestations of megalithism also began to emerge: dolmens, menhirs, burial chambers excavated in the rock…
From the Nuraghes to Mont’e Prama
From this cultural substratum, and particularly from the Bonnanaro culture3, slowly emerged the seeds of a new and innovative civilisation, with its characteristic stone buildings. The construction of the first nuraghes is only dated to 1800 BC4. It is more than four thousand years after the beginnings of the Pre-Nuragic cultures. Certainly, it is difficult to conceive of such a long period. However, it is only from this time onwards that we can speak, fully and etymologically, of a Nuragic civilisation.
Protonuraghes, tholos vaulted nuraghes and fortress-nuraghes: the buildings of the ancient Sardinians increased in number and complexity over time. All that remains of them are ruins. However, originally they appeared as massive buildings, sometimes with several towers, which seems absolutely astonishing to us today. Nuraghes were the distinguishing element of the Sardinian landscape, then as now.
“To speak of great architecture and to speak of nuraghes is the same thing. And to speak of nuraghes and to speak of Sardinia is also, within certain limits, the same thing”.
Giovanni Lilliu, La civiltà dei Sardi: dal Paleolitico all’età dei nuraghi, 1988, translation by the author
Social change in the Nuragic civilisation
The spread of this type of construction has raised crucial questions for a full understanding of the Nuragic civilisation. Lilliu, father of the Sardinian archaeology, assumed that they could serve as fortresses and were an expression of a society divided in clans. However, the function of these buildings is still largely obscure. From the Final Bronze Age (12th century BC), as new cults flourished, the nuraghes lost their importance. Some were even converted into sacred wells, adorned with bronze statuettes and simulacra. This is a sign that the Nuragic civilisation was going through a period of profound social change. A change that will lead to Mont’e Prama.
While the nuraghes probably represented centres for controlling the territory and for worship5, Mont’e Prama instead reveals the emergence of a much more complex and organised society. The Giants are the product of a “high” culture, the effort of an entire civilisation that reached its figurative peak. Placed on individual tombs, the monumental warriors testify to the existence of an aristocratic and dominant class.
Samuele Corrente Naso
