The menhirs of Sardinia and the cult of the ancestors

What drove men to erect stone monuments, raise the sacred above the earth and compose paths oriented towards desires for eternity? The menhirs of Sardinia traced enigmatic ways that are shrouded in mystery to our eyes today. Stone is difficult to penetrate in its hardness, like the intentions, ideas and common feelings of the first people to decide to shape the world. Anthropomorphic statuary spread simultaneously in Lunigiana, the Aosta Valley and many other parts of Europe, but in Sardinia it took on a primary significance, developing in a highly distinctive manner.

The menhirs of Sardinia, male symbols of fertility

Towards the end of the Neolithic period, in the second half of the 4th millennium BC, aniconic menhirs appeared on the Island. The vertical stones, fixed into the ground, consisted of unhewn monoliths bearing mysterious geometric shapes. These early monuments represented a new way of conceiving the world. For the people of the Ozieri culture¹, and perhaps even before of the San Ciriaco culture², they expressed a spiritual tension towards the territory, now understood as the living space in which to circumscribe existence. The custom of erecting menhirs indicated a change in the relationship with the earth. The benign and generous mother, in those Neolithic communities devoted to agriculture, had to be governed through symbolic fertilisation. The monoliths, called pedras fittas in Sardinian language, therefore represented the male principle³. Thus, the fertility of the fields was promoted by mimicking the mechanism of procreation⁴.

Moreover, the emergence of masculine symbols in pre-Neolithic cultures reflected the moment when different clans started to compete with each other for natural resources. So, the idea of sowing the ground with vertical and visible markers – some menhirs in Sardinia measure over five metres high – served to claim a sort of sacred birthright of the territory. At the same time, the monolith acted as a totem for the community, defining its members. This was the case with the aniconic menhir of Monte d’Accoddi (3500-3300 BC), around which a settlement developed. Over the course of several centuries, in this place arose the well-known sanctuary area with its terraced altar.

The proto-anthropomorphic menhirs

Today, the profound cultural and anthropological reasons that drove the ancient Sardinians of the Ozieri culture to shape rock into more complex forms and symbols are difficult to understand. The proto-anthropomorphic menhirs did not yet have human features. However, with imagination they could communicate thoughts and words, bringing the material to life and making the supernatural force that made the earth fertile seem real. They began to take on ogival or sub-ogival shapes, while their front surface appeared smoothed through slow, patient hammering.

At first glance, the proto-anthropomorphic menhirs do not appear to possess the expressive power characteristic of more evolved anthropomorphic statues. Nevertheless, it is possible that the human figure was painted, perhaps using red ochre, which held great significance for Neolithic populations. The flattened front face of the menhirs of Sardinia supports this hypothesis. In any case, this surface had some ritual function. At Is Cirquittus, in Laconi, it had cup marks that held offerings to mother earth.

Ancestor worship in the menhirs of Sardinia

The menhirs of Sardinia became anthropomorphic when the stone shapes began to take the form of silhouettes. The head and shoulders of a human figure were outlined, the first features of a face shyly appeared. This particular form of art reflected the desire to bring man closer to stone. It was a powerful metaphor through which to make eternal and incorruptible what is instead transitory, mortal. These anthropomorphic menhirs were images of men for eternity, sacred ancestors and deified heroes who found refuge from oblivion and remained in the memory of future generations. They settled in that time and place and, as vigilant guardians, they became guiding spirits, those who show the way.

This made it possible to historicise the possession of a territory, to sacralise it in order to claim its inheritance. Members’ belonging to the community was thus defined through family or tribal lineage.

Sacred alignments

Sometimes, stone representations of ancestors formed sacred areas. The monoliths of pre-Nuragic Sardinia stood in groups or rows along fascinating and sacred geometric lines. These cult centres, consisting of several closely spaced alignments, enabled the creation of a universal order, both physical and metaphysical. In this way, nature became more predictable and familiar. The ancient Sardinians believed that, through ritual acts such as emplacing stone blocks in the ground, they could resolve the chaos of existence and process their fear of the unknown. This was accompanied by an oral semantics, now lost. It was necessary to codify the ceremony and give it the desired effectiveness.

“The signs are mythograms linked to particular and complex ceremonies in which iterated words and litanies pronounced in front of the community have an important significance”.

M. Perra, Le statue antropomorfe prima dei nuraghi⁵.

The alignments followed strict spatial criteria, perhaps related to the observation of the sky.

The archaeological site of Biru ‘e Concas in Sorgono

The archaeological complex of Biru ‘e Concas in Sorgono is of primary importance for the study of Sardinian megalithism. It houses around one hundred and ten monoliths of various types. Many of these are aniconic and proto-anthropomorphic, but we also find an anthropomorphic menhir and some stele statues with daggers. Most of the them were aligned along two precise lines, oriented on the north-south axis⁶. Their sacred significance is still unclear. Evidence of the Sorgono site’s cultual importance in ancient times comes from its continuous use for over a thousand years, from the Late Neolithic period (3400–2800 BC) to the Copper Age (2800–1900 BC), as demonstrated by the clay materials found there⁷. In this vast lapse of time, several settlements belonging to the cultures of Ozieri, Abealzu and Monte Claro were established, to which the megalithic enclosure that delimits the sacred area belongs⁸.

Pranu Muttedu of Goni: the menhirs of Sardinia and funerary cults

At the Pranu Muttedu in Goni, people from the Ozieri culture created a magnificent open-air spiritual centre with numerous proto-anthropomorphic menhirs (3200-2800 BC)⁹. They distributed the monoliths in various ways: in rows aligned east-west; in groups of two or three; and, most notably, near monumental tombs. Burials consisted of stone cists or were carved out of erratic boulders. The entrances featured orthostats or dromos corridors. A megalithic circles, known as peristalithes, enclosed the burial chambers.

The tombs of Pranu Muttedu necropolis reveal a fundamental aspect of anthropomorphic megalithism in Sardinia: the monoliths were somehow an expression of the funerary sphere. It has been hypothesised that these burials contained the remains of distinguished community members¹⁰, possibly those same ancestors to whom the cult of the standing stones was dedicated. These corresponded to deified warriors, as suggested by the rich grave goods found in Tomb V, including obsidian weapons and fragments of a silver necklace.

Statue-menhirs of Sardinia and the image of the upturned

The final stage in the evolution of Sardinian menhirs occurred during the Eneolithic period, around 2600–2400 BC. The Filigosa culture and the subsequent Abealzu phase created monoliths carved in the image of humans. These are known as statue-menhirs or statue-steles, as they were made from flat slabs of stone. In the statue-menhirs, it is evident how the cult of ancestors had acquired meanings linked to the funerary sphere. Here, the idealised representation of the ancestor-hero coexisted with that of the deceased “upturned”, captured at the moment of passing.

Archaeologists have found statue-menhirs throughout the Island. However, they are most prevalent in the central regions, particularly in Sarcidano, Marghine, Barigadu and Mandrolisai. The Museum of Prehistoric Sculpture in Sardinia, located at the Palazzo Aymerich in Laconi, houses many of the sculptures.

The abstract figures of the ancestors

Compared to similar stone representations found in Lunigiana or other parts of the continent, Sardinian statue-steles are characterised by more blurred and abstract contours. The figures of the ancestors feature extremely stylised faces, with T-shaped noses and eyebrows and no mouths. The details of the clothing are minimal.

The ancestors therefore appeared austere and impersonal. Through codified symbols, the menhir statues expressed the ideal of a warrior rather than providing a precise figurative representation. Female sculptures were rare and perhaps corresponded to exceptional women, identifiable by the presence of breasts. These steles were certainly an expression of the mother goddess cult. In fact, they featured symbolic motifs similar to those found in the domus de janas.

The upturned human figure

In the menhir statues of the Sardinian Eneolithic period, the funerary purpose was expressed through the unsettling symbol of the upturned, a sculptural representation of similar rock petroglyphs. The deceased was depicted upside down, with arms outstretched, as the people of the Abealzu-Filigosa culture believed that the afterlife was a mirror image of the world of the living, inverted and complementary. Therefore, the upturned, placed at the top front of the sculpture, represented the transition to the afterlife. The deceased received the protection of deified heroes who, as guiding spirits enshrined in the stele, led the soul to the afterlife¹¹.

The double dagger

A dagger known as a “double” appears in the lower part of the male statue-menhirs, as it seems to consist of two opposing triangular blades. However, it is not clear if the left portion is just a handle, given that It is sharper and lacks the “V” sign that marks the other half. In that case, the weapon would be no different to the copper ones used by contemporary cultures in northern Italy, such as those found at Remedello¹².

The custom to emphasise the warrior-like nature of their heroic ancestors was certainly an indication that Sardinian Eneolithic society was experiencing a period of change. In fact, as a sign of conflict¹³, the double dagger perhaps reveals a growing rivalry between the people of the Abealzu culture and those of Monte Claro, who came from the south of Sardinia¹⁴. This could explain why the menhir statues are concentrated mainly in the centre of the Island. The double dagger was therefore the symbol of a “construction of the warrior’s ideology”¹⁵. It expressed a new attitude: the territory now had to be established with weapons. It became something that the community had to possess. Spiritual and ritual means alone were no longer sufficient, as in the days of the first aniconic menhirs. The need to defend possessions was the prerequisite for war, an activity reserved for males.

The dawn of a new world

The changes of the Eneolithic accompanied the ancient Sardinians in an era marked by conflicts and the arrival of peoples from the sea. The peoples of Monte Claro came from the continent, followed later by the Bell Beaker culture. The territory therefore had to be protected by megalithic enclosures such as those at Monte Baranta (2500–2200 BC). Furthermore, stone buildings were erected to control territory and natural resources. These conditions led to the spread of a different culture that would change Sardinia forever: at the dawn of a new world, the Nuragic civilisation arose.

Samuele Corrente Naso

Notes

1. M. Perra, Le statue antropomorfe prima dei nuraghi. Nel volume: A. Moravetti, P. Melis, L. Foddai, E. Alba, La Sardegna Preistorica, Corpora delle antichità della Sardegna, Carlo Delfino editore & C., 2017. ↩︎
2. P. Melis, La religiosità prenuragica. Nel volume: A. Moravetti, P. Melis, L. Foddai, E. Alba, La Sardegna Preistorica, Corpora delle antichità della Sardegna, Carlo Delfino editore & C., 2017. ↩︎
3. G. Lilliu, La civiltà dei sardi dal Paleolítico all’età dei nuraghi, Il Maestrale, 2004. ↩︎
4. E. Atzeni, M.G. Melis, Villaperuccio tra ipogeismo e megalitismo. Testimonianze archeologiche dalla preistoria all’età romana, Comune di Villaperuccio/Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Villaperuccio, 2000. ↩︎
5. Ibidem note 1. ↩︎
6. M. A. Fadda, Civiltà arcaica del nuorese, in Archeologia Viva 134, 2009. ↩︎
7. E. Atzeni, La scoperta delle statue-menhir. Trent’anni di ricerche archeologiche nel territorio di Laconi (a cura di G. Murru), Cagliari; Laconi. Il museo delle statue-menhir, in Sardegna Archeologica. Guide e Itinerari, 34, Sassari, 2004. ↩︎
8. F. Campus, L. Usai, Sorgono. Complesso archeologico Biru ’e Concas, in Erentzias, 1, Notiziario, Sassari, 2001. ↩︎
9. E. Atzeni, D. Cocco, Nota sulla necropoli megalitica di Pranu Mutteddu, Goni, in Atti 1989. ↩︎
10. Ibidem note 1. ↩︎
11. E. Atzeni, Le statue-menhir di Laconi, 1978. ↩︎
12. E. Atzeni, Le statue-menhir di Piscina ‘e Sali, Laconi-Sardegna, in Archéologie en Languedoc, n° 22, 1998. ↩︎
13. Ibidem note 3. ↩︎
14. F. Soula, Le pietre fitte dell’area corso-sarda. Studio sistemico dei territori, Università di Sassari, Tesi di Dottorato in Preistoria, 2012. ↩︎
15. J. Guilaime, J. Zammit, Le sentier de la guerre. Visages de la violence préhistorique, Paris, 2001. ↩︎