The giants’ graves, on the threshold of the afterlife

In Sardinia, there was a place for the living and a place for those who were no longer living, laid to rest but ready to be reborn beyond the stone threshold of the tomb. The Nuragic people believed that existence continued in the afterlife as it did in the known world. Thus, they conceived a physical space of symbolic confinement in which to construct a mirrored and inverted reality. On one side were the nuraghes, centres of identity, social life and presence on earth, on the other the sacred burial areas known as giants’ graves. The name was given by popular imagination due to the large size of the burial chamber, which could reach almost thirty metres in length.

The giants’ graves, collective burials

However, the nuragic tombs did not house giants at all, even if we want to give credence to the perception that they were witnesses to another world, forgotten and inexplicable. Simply, they were collective burial sites. Unlike the nuraghes, an absolute novelty in Sardinia, similar structures already existed in pre-Nuragic cultures. The giants’ graves originated from the millennial custom of constructing collective trilithic burials with orthostats, for instance the dolmens and those of the allée couverte type. In some cases, such as at Aidu-Cossoine, these ancient pre-Nuragic constructions were converted into giants’ graves from the Middle Bronze Age onwards¹.

Archaeologists found giants’ graves scattered throughout Sardinia. Nevertheless, they are particularly prevalent in the central-northern area corresponding to the provinces of Nuoro and Oristano². The geographical distribution of these burials follows the pattern of pre-existing dolmen architecture.

The giants’ graves were closely linked to settlements and were located near nuraghes and villages. Each one served as a burial place for members of a particular community settled in the surrounding area. They were almost always single, isolated structures. However, in very few cases, archaeologists have found several tombs close together. These necropolises, with two or three burial chambers organised into sacred complexes, reflect a high population density in the area. It is possible that several clans used the same necropolis. Sharing a common sanctuary area suggests strong kinship ties between autonomous groups³.

The threshold between life and death

Even on a symbolic and ritual level, the construction of giants’ graves derived from pre-existing traditions. They incorporated some characteristic elements of domus de janas, adapted to changing material forms. For example, the idea of a threshold separating the world of the living from that of the dead is also recurrent in the funeral customs of the Nuragic age. In the underground chambers of the domus de janas, this corresponded to a false door. But how could this concept be translated into a tomb located on the ground level?

In the giants’ graves, the threshold to the afterlife was marked by a tall, arched stele positioned at the centre of a monumental exedra, a distinctive feature of these burial sites. The slab, trapezoidal or rectangular in shape, was finely smoothed with a hammer. A thick relief frame highlighted its curved profile and ran horizontally across the middle of the surface. The exedra consisted of two wings of masonry, with slabs fixed vertically into the ground or with polygonal blocks.

The monumental façade of the giants’ graves, over four metres high, marked the boundary of a semicircular space. It was here that the faithful gathered to perform rituals. A seat ran along the lower part of the exedra. The façade, with its imposing height, therefore served as a landmark: towering above the countryside, it indicated the meeting place.

Fertility and rebirth

The semicircular plan of the exedra perhaps evoked the symbolism of bovine protomes. The Nuragic people had a particular veneration for the ox. This animal was of fundamental importance to Neolithic agricultural societies because it pulled the plough and made the soil fertile. On a metaphysical level, it fertilised Mother Earth and made the perpetual regeneration of life possible. Similarly, the ancient Sardinians believed that the ox could ensure the rebirth of the dead, as it traced the symbolic furrow necessary for the passage to the afterlife.

The architecture of the giants’ graves

Not all Sardinian giants’ graves feature the same architectural patterns. Of the approximately eight hundred burials recorded⁴ – more than a thousand are known to exist⁵ – only one hundred and thirty feature a dolmen stele placed at the centre of the exedra⁶. Moreover, it is not always made of a single stone block, but in most cases is bilithic or fragmentary⁷. The façade of the tombs often feature polygonal or isodomic masonry, revealing architectural choices similar to those used for nuraghes. The corridor of the burial chamber can also consist of stones arranged in regular rows or using orthostats. In addition, there are numerous giants’ graves in which the two methods coexist and alternate on the façade and along the rear chamber.

We do not fully understand the reasons for this variability, which could be related to specific chronological sequences that occurred at the territorial level⁸. The first dolmen-type giants’ graves with orthostat burial chambers date back to the Middle Bronze Age (18th-15th century BC). The isodomic type belongs to a later period (16th-13th century BC).

We can find the giants’ graves not only in the open air. It may come as a surprise to learn that around ninety tombs are located underground. These are known as architectonic prospect domus: the external entrance is carved to imitate the arched stele of the subaerial type with a semicircular exedra, while the burial chamber is elongated like a dolmen corridor, thanks to the creation of a single space⁹. The burials, dating back to the Middle Bronze Age (18th-15th century BC), are mainly distributed in the northern part of Logudoro, where the rocky terrain was well suited to this purpose.

The betyls, guardians of the threshold

Around the giants’ graves, the Nuragic people used to place large anthropomorphic carved boulders, especially on the sides of the burial corridor and in the area in front of the exedra. These “betyls”, conical in shape and averaging one and a half metres in height, usually stood in the ground in groups, although there are also examples of single statues.

Some betyls featured representations of sexual characteristics. In some cases they showed breasts, while in others the entire shape took the form of a phallus, perhaps in connection with fertility rites. The betyls served as witnesses to the transition to the afterlife, acting as silent guardians of the threshold. In addition, they defined identity and community belonging. This explains why the archaeologists found approximately one hundred known examples well distributed throughout Sardinia. Scholars have determined that they were used for a long period of time¹⁰. Some betyls accompanied the monumental necropolis of Mont’e Prama during the Iron Age, even though at that time the Nuragic people no longer buried their dead in giants’ graves.

The doorway to the afterlife and the burial chamber

In a central position at the foot of the arched stele or masonry façade was a small trapezoidal doorway that opened into the burial chamber. The quadrangular chamber consisted of a corridor covered with slabs, which was on average fifteen metres long¹¹. A curved apse closed it at the rear. Overall, the structure resembled an upturned boat, sometimes covered by a tumulus of earth.

Numerous elements indicate that the giants’ graves served for hosting secondary burials. Therefore, these tombs contained only the bones of the deceased. It is also possible that a semi-combustion or flesh removal of the body occurred before burial. In most cases, the skeletal remains were inside the funerary chamber in a state of considerable fragmentation. This makes it impossible to reconstruct the manner of burial. In any case, the doorway was too small to allow the placement of the deceased in the tomb through it. The inhumation took place by removing one of the slabs covering the corridor¹². The doorway of the exedra had an exclusively symbolic function and worshippers used it to introduce votive offerings.

The mystery of the dentiled ashlar

In tombs with masonry exedras and isodomic structures, archaeologists have often found a mysterious stone known as a “dentilled ashlar”. This truncated pyramid-shaped stone block always features three notches of equal size on the surface of its smallest side.

The function of the dentilled ashlar is controversial. According to Giovanni Lilliu¹³ and Mauro Perra¹⁴, the block was located at the centre of the exedra, at the top, and served as a mechanism for opening and closing the burial chamber, so as to allow the deceased to be placed inside from above. However, Caterina Bittichesu claims that the notches in the block had a purely cultic function and housed three small betyls¹⁵. It is interesting to note that the same three holes were also in the extrados of the carved façade of the architectonic prospect domus, which reproduces the subaerial type of arched stele. The idea is of a triad of deities whose task was to accompany the dead to the afterlife, erected to guard the metaphysical threshold.

The ritual aspects of the giants’ graves

The scarcity of grave goods makes it impossible to determine the social status of those buried in the giants’ graves. Except for a few items of little value, mostly pottery and stone, the archaeologists have found nothing inside the funerary chambers. It is therefore unknown whether these burials were reserved for the entire community, as an expression of an egalitarian society, or only for a ruling elite¹⁶.

However, the artefacts found outside the burial chamber are much more indicative. Near the hemicycle, during collective ceremonies, the Nuragic people placed small objects such as ceremonial vases, spheres and idols. The high exedra, the bench-seat and the area in front of it were used for public and open worship, perhaps connected to the celebration of ancestral heroes¹⁷. The arched stele of the giants’ graves could thus represent the final piece in the extraordinary evolution of Sardinian megalithism which, since pre-Nuragic cultures, had sought to celebrate ancestors through proto-anthropomorphic and anthropomorphic menhirs, and later through sacred alignments and stele statues.

However, those were the last moments of an ancestral ritual, destined to disappear. Starting in the Late Bronze Age, Nuragic society underwent significant changes, including a shift in religious practices and the emergence of shrines dedicated to water, which were able to attract greater wealth¹⁸. The giants’ graves, a sign of equality and sharing, were no longer built. The funeral rites linked to a nascent Nuragic aristocracy developed. At Mont’e Prama, collective burials were already a thing of the past and the deceased acquired their own identity. Individual pit tombs were guarded by gigantic sculptures of warriors, boxers and archers, an arcane reflection of those who had lived on earth and now lived in stone.

Samuele Corrente Naso

Notes

1. F. Campus, L. Usai, Il nuraghe Aidu di Cossoine e i monumenti del territorio, Catalogo della mostra, Siena, 2011. ↩︎
2. A. Moravetti, Ricerche archeologiche nel Marghine-Planargia. La Planargia, analisi e monumenti, in Sardegna Archeologica. Studi e Monumenti, 5, Vol. II, Sassari, 2000. ↩︎
3. A. Moravetti, Nota sulle tombe di giganti. Nel volume: A. Moravetti, P. Melis, L. Foddai, E. Alba, La Sardegna Nuragica. Storia e materiali, Corpora delle antichità della Sardegna, Carlo Delfino editore & C., 2014. ↩︎
4. S. Bagella, Stato degli studi e nuovi dati sull’entità del fenomeno funerario della Sardegna nuragica. In A. D’Anna, J. Cesari, L. Ogel, J. Vaquer, Corse et Sardaigne préhistoriques. Relations, échanges et coopération en Méditerranée, Atti del 128° Congrès National des Sociétés Historiques et Scientifiques (Bastia, 14-21 avril 2003), Documents Préhistoriques, Paris, 2007. ↩︎
5. Ibidem note 3. ↩︎
6. S. Bagella, Tombe di giganti e altre sepolture nuragiche. Nel volume: A. Moravetti, P. Melis, L. Foddai, E. Alba, La Sardegna Nuragica. Storia e monumenti, Corpora delle antichità della Sardegna, Carlo Delfino editore & C., 2017. ↩︎
7. E. Contu, Il significato della stele nelle tombe di giganti, in Quaderni 8, Dessi, Sassari, 1978. ↩︎
8. C. Bittichesu, Monumenti megalitici funerari del territorio di Sedilo. In La ceramica del Sinis dal neolitico ai giorni nostri, Atti del II Convegno di studi “La ceramica racconta la storia” (Cabras-Oristano, 25-26 ottobre 1996), Cagliari, 1998; G. Lilliu, La civiltà dei Sardi dal Paleolitico alla fine dell’età nuragica, Torino, 1988. ↩︎
9. P. Melis, Le domus a prospetto architettonico, 2014; L’ipogeismo funerario della Sardegna nuragica. Tombe di giganti scolpite nella roccia, in Sardegna Archeologica. Scavi e Ricerche, Sassari, 2014. ↩︎
10. E. Usai, Idoli betilici di Mont’e Prama. In M. E. Minoja, A. Usai, Le sculture di Mont’e Prama. Contesto, scavi e materiali, Roma, 2014. ↩︎
11. Ibidem note 6. ↩︎
12. Ibidem note 6. ↩︎
13. G. Lilliu, Betili e betilini nelle tombe di giganti della Sardegna, in RendLincei, serie 9, Volume VI, fascicolo 4, 1995; G. Lilliu, La tomba di giganti di Bidistili e i templi a “megaron” della Sardegna Nuragica, in Sardegna Archeologica. Scavi e Ricerche, 4, Sassari, 2010. ↩︎
14. M. Perra, Rituali funerari e culto degli antenati nell’Ogliastra in età nuragica. In M. G. Meloni, S. Nocco, Ogliastra: identità storica di una provincia, “Atti del Convegno di studi” (Jerzu-Lanusei-Arzana-Tortolì, 23-25 gennaio 1997), Senorbì, 2000. ↩︎
15. C. Bittichesu, La tomba di Bùsoro a Sedilo e l’architettura funeraria nuragica, in Ricerche Archeologiche, 1, Sassari, 1989. ↩︎
16. P. Bernardini, Le torri, i metalli, il mare. Storie antiche di un’isola mediterranea, in Sardegna Archeologica. Scavi e ricerche, 6, Sassari, 2010. ↩︎
17. M. Perra, Dal culto degli antenati al culto delle acque: una riflessione sulla religiosità nuragica. In M. Rocchi, P. Xella, Archeologia e Religione, Atti del I Colloquio del Gruppo di contatto per lo studio delle religioni mediterranee (Roma, CNR, 15 dicembre 2003), Verona, 2006. ↩︎
18. A. Depalmas, Il Bronzo Finale della Sardegna. In La preistoria e la protostoria della Sardegna, Atti della XLIV Riunione Scientifica dell’Istituto Italiano di Preistoria e Protostoria (Cagliari-Barumini-Sassari, 23-28 novembre 2009), Firenze, 2009. ↩︎