How do you want to see it?
Cagliari · SardiniaCompare the same experience on GetYourGuide and Viator, save what you like to My Trip, share it, and book when you’re sure. Nearest to this page first.
The museum of a civilisation that wrote nothing
Between roughly 1600 and 700 BC Sardinia belonged to the Nuragic civilisation, a culture that existed nowhere else. Its signature is the nuraghe, the megalithic tower with a tholos vault, over 7,000 survive, with Su Nuraxi di Barumini the most famous. The Nuragic people left no texts, which is what makes this museum different from any other archaeological collection in Italy: the objects are the only voice the culture has.
Two groups of objects do most of the talking. The bronzetti are small bronze figures, archers, wrestlers, chiefs, mothers with children, boats, a whole society in miniature, and a collection without parallel anywhere. The Giants of Mont’e Prama are the opposite scale: stone figures over two metres tall with double-circle eyes, found smashed into thousands of fragments at Cabras and among the oldest monumental statues of the Mediterranean. Cagliari displays part of the group. The Cabras museum near the find site holds others.
After the Nuragics: Phoenicians, Punics, Romans
The upper floors follow Sardinia as Mediterranean crossroads. Phoenician traders founded Nora, Tharros and Sulci. Carthage absorbed the island. Rome took it in 238 BC. Look for the Nora Stele, one of the earliest inscriptions found in the western Mediterranean and possibly the first written mention of Sardinia’s name, and the grinning Punic masks from tophet sanctuaries. The museum grew from an 1800 cabinet of antiquities, and the archaeology giant Giovanni Lilliu, the scholar of the nuraghi, gives his name to the Cittadella’s tradition of Sardinian scholarship.
Planning your visit
The Cittadella dei Musei sits at the top of the Castello district, so combine the museum with the old town: bastions, the cathedral and the Torre di San Pancrazio are all close. Two hours covers the highlights. If the Giants grab you, the dedicated museum at Cabras (near Oristano, about 1h15 by car) completes the story with the reassembled boxers and archers.
Getting to the island: ferries run from Civitavecchia, Genoa and Livorno, flights into Cagliari-Elmas are frequent, and our Cagliari guide covers the rest of the city.
