Sardinia: Megalithic Island

This is the catalogue of an itinerant exhibition that will visit several cities in Europe, exploring and revealing the secrets of one of the most fascinating civilisations of the Mediterranean Sea. The Nuragic civilisation takes its name from the Sardinian word for the monument considered most representative of this civilisation: the "nuraghe".

This structure consists of a tower constructed with large slabs of stone, either rough-hewn or cut with varying degrees of regularity. It contains one or more chambers, stacked one atop the other, and features the typical roof known as a "false dome" or "tholos". The 'nuraghe' appears both as a single tower and as a complex, with a central tower surrounded by other towers. Villages of stone huts were often built around many of the nuraghi.

There are also other types of buildings: the "protonuraghi" (also known as "pseudonuraghi" or "corridor nuraghi"), the "giants' tombs", the "well temples" and "sacred springs", and the "megaron" temples.

The archaeological data confirm that the Nuragic civilisation was based on an agricultural and sheep-farming economy, but it also made significant use of mineral resources, particularly copper and lead.