Monte Baranta

Monte Baranta is a pre-Nuragic archaeological complex dating to 2500-2200 BC. It lies in the Nurra, a region of north-western Sardinia, at a place called Su Casteddu, about two kilometres from the village of Olmedo. It stands at an altitude of about 120 m above sea level on the trachyte plateau of the mountain of the same name, and from there it overlooks, to the south, the valleys and plains that stretch as far as the roadstead of Alghero.

The megalithic complex is made up of four different parts: the tower-enclosure, the wall, the village and the sacred area. The tower-enclosure is U-shaped, with its tips turned towards the cliff, on which it sits in a dominant position. Its walls are built of large slabs of trachyte, with an average height of about three metres and fifty and a thickness that varies from a minimum of 4.15 m to a maximum of 6.50. The interior covers 390 m² and is entered through two corridor entrances, one to the north and one to the west, topped by massive horizontal blocks of trachyte. Details in the walls suggest that wooden structures were once set into their thickness, serving for defence and lookout.

About a hundred metres from the tower-enclosure rises the megalithic wall, also built of large polygonal slabs of trachyte, with an average height of 2.5 m and a thickness of 5. It runs from north to south for about 97 metres, closing off the only stretch of flat ground on the site. At its southern end, near the slope, a corridor of 0.90 by 1.60 by 5.10 m, originally roofed with trachyte monoliths, forms the only opening into the settlement. Collapses at the top of the wall make it impossible to say for certain whether it carried a walkway like the one in the tower-enclosure.

Enclosed by the wall, the tower-enclosure and the drop was the village. Although ruined, the perimeter walls of some huts can still be made out, standing up to 80 cm high, some rectangular and others apsidal. The largest has a surface of 37 m² and keeps traces of a partition and of a floor of small stones.

Outside the village, a few metres from the wall, lay the sacred area. About eighty orthostatic slabs are arranged to form a megalithic circle with a diameter of about 10 metres. Several menhirs also lie on the ground, mostly broken. The largest is a monolith almost 4 metres long, which was certainly never erected, judging by the socket meant to hold its base, which was only at the preparation stage. The menhir itself is unfinished and only roughly shaped.

Despite surveys made in the Olmedo area early in the last century by the scholar Filippo Nissardi, the complex stayed unknown until a few years ago. It was missing from the 1922 list of monumental buildings, appeared in 1958 on survey maps as the nuraghe Su Casteddu, and was described only partly in a 1962 study by the archaeologist Ercole Contu. A complete picture came only from the excavations of the late '70s directed by Professor Alberto Moravetti, and the finds allowed the settlement to be assigned with certainty to the Copper Age and the Monte Claro culture. The type and scarcity of the finds, together with the unfinished sacred area, suggest a fairly short occupation, followed by renewed use in the Bronze Age by people of the Bonnanaro culture (1800-1600 BC) and, sporadically, in Nuragic and Roman times. In 2025 the complex was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list together with other pre-Nuragic sites on the island.

Monte Baranta is a megalith (abstract root) in Olmedo, Italy. Wikidata describes it as: megalithic complex in Olmedo, Italy. A typological estimate: 4500 BCE to 600 CE. No English Wikipedia article exists for it; the full text below is the Italian article "Complesso prenuragico di Monte Baranta", shown in the original language.