The nuragic palace, a World Heritage Site
Sardinia is dotted with over 7,000 nuraghi, the truncated cone-shaped stone towers built by the Nuragic civilisation between about 1800 and 500 BC, a culture unique to the island. The most famous and complete is Su Nuraxi, near Barumini in the Marmilla, which has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997, the only one in Sardinia.
It consists of a central tower, originally about 18 metres high, built around 1600 BC with huge basalt blocks laid without mortar, surrounded later by a bastion with four corner towers connected by walls, and a further outer wall with other towers. Around the fortress grew a village of about fifty circular stone huts, with streets, courtyards, wells and a meeting hut with a stone bench. The site was buried by a hill of earth and rediscovered only in 1949 by the Sardinian archaeologist Giovanni Lilliu, after heavy rains revealed part of the walls. The guided tour lets you climb inside the towers, through narrow passages and staircases, to understand the extraordinary engineering of the nuragic builders. In the village of Barumini, the Casa Zapata, a Spanish noble palace, was built over another nuraghe, visible through glass floors.
Tip: visits are guided and leave every half hour; the combined ticket includes Casa Zapata. In summer, go early in the morning to avoid the heat.
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