Arzachena: the Bronze Age behind the Costa Smeralda
A short drive from the yachts, a triple-towered nuraghe rules a village of a hundred stone huts, and a four-metre stele guards a collective tomb the Gallurese call the giants’.
WhereArzachena (SS), Gallura. 10 minutes inland from the Costa Smeralda
Site 1Nuraghe La Prisgiona: three towers and a village of 90–100 huts
Site 2Tomba dei Giganti di Coddu Vecchiu, 1 km away
The steleAbout 4 m tall, arched, from the Middle Bronze Age
Age14th–8th century BC (La Prisgiona). Tomb begun c. 18th century BC
TechniqueDry stone throughout, huge blocks, no mortar
Sardegna, Italy · photo ciamabue · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
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Sardinia, Italy
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La Prisgiona is what archaeologists call a complex nuraghe: a central tholos tower with two more towers bound into a triangular bastion, surrounded by a village of ninety to a hundred round huts, one with a well that still holds water. Between the 14th and 8th centuries BC this was a political and economic center of Gallura, something like a regional capital. What it was for, exactly, nobody can prove: the Nuragic people wrote nothing, so the towers keep their counsel. For the wider story, the Cagliari museum is the key.
Coddu Vecchiu: burying the community together
A kilometer away stands the most photographed giants’ tomb in Sardinia. Coddu Vecchiu grew in two stages, a gallery grave of the Early Bronze Age (c. 18th century BC), later fronted by a semicircular exedra with a great arched stele about four metres tall. These were collective tombs: a community’s dead together, behind a stone that looks like a door to somewhere else. The name “giants’ tombs” is the islanders’ old explanation for buildings too big for ordinary humans.
The Gigants`Tomnb Coddu Vecchiu · photo Holger Uwe Schmitt · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Practical
The Arzachena sites cluster within a few kilometers. A combined ticket covers La Prisgiona, Coddu Vecchiu and their siblings. It is the perfect half-day when the Costa Smeralda beaches are full or the wind is up, and the contrast between the yacht coast and the Bronze Age is the point. Olbia’s airport and ferries are 30 minutes away.
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