.JPG/1920px-Macomer_-_Nuraghe_Santa_Barbara_(03).JPG 1920w)
Nuraghe Santa Barbara
DatedEst. 1900–730 BCE
Photo Gianni Careddu · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
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Overview
About this site
Overview
The Nuraghe Santa Barbara is a nuraghe at Macomer, in the province of Nuoro in Sardinia, Italy. It is a complex nuraghe, in which the main tower is enclosed in a four-lobed bastion. Nuraghi were built during the Nuragic Age, between 1900 and 730 BCE, and the catalogue gives this range as a typological estimate for the site.
The main tower survives to a height of 15 metres. The site is protected as part of the Italian national heritage.
Read on Wikipedia5 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
Article
Nuraghe Santa Barbara
A short distance away is a giants' tomb, while a little lower down, on a level terrace, stands the cyclopean wall of Pedra Oddetta.
SettingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Nuraghe Santa BarbaraCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Nuraghe Santa BarbaraCC BY-SA 4.0
The nuraghe was built on the edge of a plateau, halfway up the basalt relief of Monte Manai, in a dominant position above the valley of S'Adde, which separates it from the plateau on which the settlement of Macomer lies. A short distance away is a giants' tomb, while a little lower down, on a level terrace, stands the cyclopean wall of Pedra Oddetta.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Nuraghe Santa BarbaraCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Nuraghe Santa BarbaraCC BY-SA 4.0
The nuraghe is of the complex type: the main tower (mastio) is enclosed, in a central position, in a four-lobed bastion with a sinuous profile and a fairly regular plan. Of the outer enclosure reported by Alberto La Marmora, which defended the south-eastern side eight metres from the nuraghe and probably once surrounded the whole fortress, only a few traces remain. Around the nuraghe are the remains of a large settlement that has not yet been excavated.
ConstructionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Nuraghe Santa BarbaraCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Nuraghe Santa BarbaraCC BY-SA 4.0
The main tower, called tower A, stands out clearly above the bastion. It is preserved to a height of 15 metres and has a diameter of 9 m at the top. Its profile is not uniformly inclined. The facing is of local basalt blocks and is carefully worked, especially in the upper courses.
The entrance faces south-east and is trapezoidal, topped by a sturdy lintel and a relieving window. The corridor behind it, more than 5 metres long, is roofed with transverse slabs. Halfway along, where the corridor reaches its greatest width, the entrance to a niche opens on the left and the entrance to the staircase on the right, facing each other. The steps of the staircase are carefully made. The ground-floor chamber, of slightly elliptical plan (5.05 × 5.80 m), is still intact. It is high and slender (9.60 m) and is bordered by three niches in the usual cruciform arrangement, although only the lateral pair is deep and well formed, while the niche opposite the entrance is only a slight recess. The spiral staircase, notable for turning anticlockwise, is fully provided with steps and led to the upper levels, which were lit by windows. Along its course is a small storage silo, similar to that in the main tower of Santu Antine.
On the first floor is a circular chamber, still intact and smaller than that on the ground floor (diameter 3.50 m; height 4.80 m), with no side spaces. It is lit by a wide trapezoidal window with an arched lintel (width 1.05/0.55 m; height 1.10 m). The staircase continued to a third circular chamber (diameter 3.10 m), of which only the base survives, in two courses of stone.
The bastion has a quadrangular plan tending towards a trapezoid, with curtain walls of concavo-convex profile joining four corner towers (B, C, D, E) and enclosing a small courtyard in front of the entrance to the main tower. Its dimensions along the median axes are 17 × 21.40 m, and the width of the two facades varies from 21 m at the rear to 18 m for the front curtain. The outer walls are preserved to a height of 8.80 m on the north-west side but only 2.00 m on the east. They are built of roughly squared basalt blocks laid in fairly regular courses. The entrance opens on the south-east side, slightly off centre, and is aligned with the door of the main tower. A short corridor with no side spaces leads to a small courtyard of sub-elliptical plan, from which the main tower and the two front towers are reached.
Tower B, preceded by a short corridor that widens towards the interior and with a niche in its right-hand wall, was evidently restored in antiquity. It is circular in plan (diameter 3.30 m) and is preserved to a height of 3.20 m (11 courses). It has a loophole, aligned with the entrance and raised above the floor level. A wide trapezoidal door, raised 0.50 m above the ground, opens in the south-west wall of the chamber onto a small landing with three wide niches. From there a staircase begins, running along the front curtain wall, then turning right and continuing above the corridor leading to tower B, and then over the bastion. The existence of this staircase, now without roofing and even without steps, which were probably removed in the Roman period when the space was reused as a room, provides a second access to tower B from the top of the bastion.
Tower C, circular in plan (4.00 × 4.10 m; height 5.00 m), is entered directly from the courtyard through a door with a lintel. To the left of the entrance are four niches and a fifth, raised, niche. There are no connecting corridors between the four corner towers of the bastion. The two rear towers, which are destroyed and not yet excavated, were certainly not reached from the courtyard or from the front towers. It is therefore supposed that access was from the wall-walks, by descending staircases, although the presence of posterns opening directly to the outside cannot be excluded.
Later historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Nuraghe Santa BarbaraCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Nuraghe Santa BarbaraCC BY-SA 4.0
The site was visited sporadically in the Phoenician-Punic and Roman periods, as shown by the pottery found inside the nuraghe.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Nuraghe Santa BarbaraCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Nuraghe Santa BarbaraCC BY-SA 4.0
The nuraghe is the main type of ancient megalithic building in Sardinia and has become the symbol of the island and of its Nuragic civilization. More than 7,000 have been found, and archaeologists believe that originally there were more than 10,000. A nuraghe has the outer shape of a truncated conical tower, with a tholos-like vault inside.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Sardinian nuraghi
The nuraghe is the main type of ancient megalithic building in Sardinia, and it has become the symbol of the island and of its Nuragic civilization. They were built during the Nuragic Age, between 1900 and 730 BCE. More than 7,000 have been found, and archaeologists believe that originally there were more than 10,000. A nuraghe has the outer shape of a truncated conical tower, rather like a medieval tower, with a tholos-like vault inside.
The finest is Su Nuraxi at Barumini, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997. Its oldest part is a central tower with three superposed chambers, 18.6 metres high, built of basalt blocks between the seventeenth and thirteenth centuries BCE. In the Late Bronze Age four corner towers joined by a curtain wall were added, and a village grew around it, inhabited from the thirteenth to the sixth century BCE. Scholars consider it the most impressive expression of the Nuragic civilization.
There is no consensus on what the nuraghi were for: rulers' residences, military strongholds, meeting halls, temples and ordinary dwellings have all been proposed. The Nuragic civilization lasted from the eighteenth century BCE until the Iron Age or the beginning of Roman colonisation in 238 BCE, and building of nuraghi had stopped by the twelfth or eleventh century BCE. Its origins are disputed: the traditional theory of Giovanni Lilliu, from 1966, saw migrants related to the Beaker culture, while others argue for local development. Even the word nuraghe has an uncertain and disputed etymology.
Many nuraghi have never been excavated, and their dates are inferred from their form.
When visiting, look for the stone courses, the entrance corridor, and the village of huts that often surrounds the tower.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Nuraghe, Wikipedia: Nuragic civilization, Wikipedia: Su Nuraxi · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
Photographs
8 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
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Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 1900–730 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for nuraghes in Italy; this site has not been dated itself. The nuraghe is the main type of ancient megalithic edifice of Sardinia developed during the Nuragic Age between 1900 and 730 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
Italy
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 40°16′33″ N, 8°46′59″ EFor a GPS or map app: 40.27596, 8.78296
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
- Giants' tomb (tomba di giganti)Tomba dei giganti Santa Barbara1900–730 BCE
- NuragheNuraghe Basones1900–730 BCE
- NuragheNuraghe Sa Maddalena1900–730 BCE
- NuragheNuraghe Nasprìas1900–730 BCE
Nuraghe Ruggiu1900–730 BCE- NuragheNuraghe Bullitta1900–730 BCE
- NuragheNuraghe Corte1900–730 BCE
- NuragheNuraghe Sporlò1900–730 BCE
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Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q30545141wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Macomer - Nuraghe Santa Barbara (03).JPGGianni CaredduCC BY-SA 4.0
- Macomer - Nuraghe di Santa Barbara (01).JPGGianni CaredduCC BY-SA 3.0
- Nuraghe Santa Barbara Macomer.jpgDragonjack97CC BY-SA 4.0
- Nuraghe santa barbara, interno (livello 1) 02.JPGSailkoCC BY 3.0
- Nuraghe santa barbara, veduta 01.JPGSailkoCC BY 3.0
- Nuraghe santa barbara, veduta 03.JPGSailkoCC BY 3.0
- Nuraghe santa barbara, veduta di una della camere del quadrilobo dal livello 1.JPGSailkoCC BY 3.0
- Nuraghe santa barbara, interno (livello 0) 01.JPGSailkoCC BY 3.0
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Nuraghe Santa Barbara" (French), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (French): Nuraghe Santa BarbaraCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q30545141CC0