Description of the attraction
The tomb of the giants - this is how the inhabitants of Sardinia call the tombs, created in the middle of the 2nd - the middle of the 1st millennium BC. and related to the Nuragic period in the history of the island. In total, about 300 such graves have been found in Sardinia.
The tombs of the giants consist of a burial chamber and a tour lying on it - an artificial conical structure made of stones. Sometimes there is also a cup-shaped entrance, and then the whole structure bears a clear resemblance to the archaeological site of Court Cairn in Ireland.
Scientists-archaeologists distinguish two types of giant tombs - tiled and beamed. In the first, rough stone slabs, buried at one end in the ground, are located side by side. The largest - central - stele up to 4 meters high has an entrance. Inside, the tombs have a clear rectangular layout. The dimensions of the burial chambers vary from 5 to 15 meters in length and from 1 to 2 meters in height. After the construction of the tomb, it was covered with a hill in the form of an overturned ship, and an obelisk was erected near the entrance, which played the role of the ancestor god, the guardian of the deceased's peace. Similar tomb-type tombs can be seen at Osono, Sortaglia, Lolgi and Peskaredda. And in the vicinity of the cities of Dorgaglia, Goronna, Santo Biatsu and Coddu Vecchio there are more perfect tiled tombs - in them the central stele is processed and rounded at the top, and also has an image on the front surface.
Another type of giant tombs - girder - was found in the areas of Bidistili, Madau II, Seleni II, Iloi and Mura Kuat. They differ from the previous ones in that they are built from hewn rectangular blocks.
It is also worth noting that in their form and nature of the structure, the Sardinian tombs of the giants are very similar to the megalithic temples of Malta - an explanation for this fact has not yet been found.
