SARDINIA (SARDEGNA)

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                                         S A R D I N I A   -   S A R D E G N A






                                 

                                                                             Regione Autonoma della Sardegna
                                                                             Regione Autònoma de sa Sardigna 
 
 
Capital: Cagliari

                                                                                     
President: Renato Sora
(Independent-Union)

 
Provinces:

Cagliari
Carbonia-Iglesias
Medio Campidano
Nuoro
Ogliastra
Olbia-Tempio
Oristano
Sassari
Comuni 377


Languages Italian, Sardinian


Area 24,090 km²
 - Ranked 3rd (8.0 %)


Population (2006 est.)
 - Total

 - Ranked
 - Density
 
1,655,677
11th (2.8 %)
69/km²

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Cagliari the capital.Sardinia (pronounced /sɑː(ɹ)ˈdɪnɪə/; Italian: Sardegna; Sardinian: Sardigna or Sardinnya) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (after Sicily). The area of Sardinia is 24 090 square kilometers. The island lies between Italy, Spain, and Tunisia, south of Corsica; it is one of the autonomous regions with special statute under the Italian Constitution.

At the beginning of the nuragic age circa 1500 BC the island was first called Hyknusa (Latinized Ichnusa) by the Mycenaeans probably meaning island (nusa) of the Hyksos; the people who had just been expelled by Ahmose I of Egypt circa 1540 BC. Sandalyon was its second name, probably due to its shape, recalling a footprint. Last and present name has been Sardinia, for the Shardana (whose invasion of Egypt was defeated by Ramesses III circa 1180 BC).

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                                          H I S T O R Y   O F   S A R D I N I A






Sardinia's history is very ancient. In 1979 human remains were found that were dated to 150,000 BC.
 
In 2004, in a cave in Logudoro, a human phalanx was found that was dated to ~250,000 BC.



In Prehistory Sardinia's inhabitants developed a trade in obsidian, a stone used for the production of the first tools, and this activity brought Sardinians into contact with most of the Mediterranean people. Desiccated grapes, recently found in several locations, were DNA tested and proved to be the oldest grapes in the world, dating back to 1200 BC. The Cannonau wine is made with these grapes and may qualify as the mother of all the European wines.

From Neolithic times until the Roman Empire, the Nuragic civilisation took shape on the island. Still today, more than 9,000 Nuraghe survive. It is speculated that, among others, the Shardana people landed in Sardinia coming from the eastern Mediterranean. Shardana had joined the Shekelesh and others to form the coalition of the Sea Peoples, but were defeated by Ramesses III around 1180 BC in Egypt. Shardana and Shekelesh were also called by the Egyptians as the "people from the faraway islands", implying that Shardana were already residents of Sardinia at the time of the Egyptian expedition. This assertion holds some truth; in fact most of the tombe dei giganti have a tombstone shaped like a ship vertically dug into the ground, bearing witness to their sea traveling activities. According to some linguistic studies, the town of Sardis (in Lydia) would have been their starting point from which they would have reached the Tyrrhenian Sea, dividing into what were to become the Sardinians and the Etruscans.

However most theories regarding the original population of Sardinia have been formulated prior to genetics research and in the traditional frame of east-west movements. Genetics seem to show Sardinia's population to be genetically quite distant from their neighbors. This is principally due to genetic drift, though other reasons, such as ties with pre-Indo-European Neolithic peoples may also have contributed to this distance.

The density, extensiveness and sheer size of the architectural remains from the Neolithic period, points to a considerable population of the island.

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Beginning around 1000 BC, Phoenician mariners established several ports of trade on the Sardinian coast. In 509 BC, war broke out between the native Nuragic people and the Phoenician settlers. The settlers called for help from Carthage, and the island became a province in the Carthaginian Empire. In 238 BC, after being defeated by the Roman Republic in the First Punic War, Carthage was forced to fight an uprising against former mercenaries who had not received their promised pay in a conflict known as the Mercenary War, Rome took this as an opporunity to annex Corsica and Sardinia without resistance from the overstretched Carthaginians. During the Roman period, the geographer Ptolemy noted that it was inhabited by the following peoples, from north to south: the Tibulati and the Corsi, the Coracenses, the Carenses and the Cunusitani, the Salcitani and the Lucuidonenses, the Æsaronenses, the Æchilenenses (also called Cornenses), the Rucensi, the Celsitani and the Corpicenses, the Scapitani and the Siculensi, the Neapolitani and the Valentini, the Solcitani and the Noritani. Ptol. III, 3.





CARALIS -CIRCA 40 BC

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From 456 - 534, Sardinia was a part of the short-lived kingdom of the Vandals in North Africa, until it was reconquered by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I. During this time a considerable amount of Germanic Vandals and Iranic Alans settled on the island. Under the Byzantines, the imperial representative was a judge who governed from the southern city of Caralis. Byzantine rule was practically nonexistent in the mountainous Barbagia region in the eastern part of the island, and an independent kingdom persisted there from the sixth through ninth centuries.

 
Satellite imageBeginning in the eighth century, Arabs and Berbers began raiding Sardinia. Especially after the conquering of Sicily in 832, the Byzantines were unable to effectively defend their most distant province, and the provincial judge assumed independent authority. To provide for local defense, he divided the island into four giudicati, Gallura, Logudoro, Arborea, and Caralis. By 900, these districts had become four independent constitutional monarchies. At various times, these fell under the sway of Genoa and Pisa. In 1323, the Kingdom of Aragon began a campaign to conquer Sardinia; the giudicato of Arborea successfully resisted this and for a time came to control nearly the entire island, but its last ruler William III of Narbonne, was eventually defeated by the Aragonese in the decisive Battle of Sanluri, June 30, 1409. The native population of the city of Alghero (S'Alighera in Sardinian, L'Alguer in Catalan) was expelled and the city repopulated by the Catalan invaders, whose descendants still speak Catalan. After the merge of the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, Sardinia was incorporated into the newly created national entity, Spain.

Under Spain, Sardinians were regularly employed on the royal Spanish fleet. On October 7, 1571, at the Battle of Lepanto, Sardinian mariners on Board the admiralship of Infante Don John of Austria, half brother of Felipe II, boarded the Turkish admiralship, overpowered the crew, and cut off the head of a Turkish admiral. The sight of the admiral's head on a spear put such a fear in the heart of the Turks, that they abandoned the fight and completely surrendered to Christians. This was the first time Turks lost out. 

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K I N G D O M   O F   S A R D I N I A







KINGDOM OF PIEDMONT - SARDINIA






In 1718 Sardinia became an 'independent' vassal kingdom under the House of Savoy, rulers of Piedmont.

In 1792, Jean-Paul Marat, son of a Sardinian father from Cagliari and a Swiss mother, was one of the triumvirate leading the French Revolution. In 1793, Sardinians rebelled, demanding autonomy in exchange for helping to defeat French invasion forces. Autonomy was granted in the combined kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, but after the French threat to the kingdom lessened, the king took back his authority.

In 1860, Vittorio Emanuele II, King of Sardinia became also the first King of Italy after conquering the rest of the peninsula.

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                                                             G E N E T I C S





The original Nuraghe inhabitants of Sardinia, who are now concentrated in the interior of the island
due to pressure from colonists, are a genetic anomaly in the region.

They belong to Y-chromosome haplogroup I, which otherwise has high frequency only in Scandinavia and the Croatia-Bosnia area.

Furthermore, the I haplogroup of the indigenous Sardinians is of the I1b1b subtype, which is unique to the island.

The I1b1b haplogroup also has a low distribution in and around the Pyrenees, indicating some migration of Sardinians to that area.

The Sardinian subtype is more closely related to the Croatian-Bosnian subtype than to the Scandinavian subtype.

Sardinia also has a relatively high distribution of Y-chromosome haplogroup G, which results from people that migrated to Sardinia from Anatolia.

Y-chromosome haplogroup G also has a relatively high concentration in and around the Pyrenees, again indicating migration of Sardinians to that area.

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                                                       G E O G R A P H Y






Sardinia is separated from Corsica by the Strait of Bonifacio.


Sardinia is divided in four provinces:






                                                      G E O G R A P H Y



Sardinia is separated from Corsica by the Strait of Bonifacio.



Sardinia is divided in four provinces:



Cagliari

Nuoro

Oristano

Sassari

 



The following four provinces have been created by the Sardinian regional government, but still have to be recognized by the Italian government:



Carbonia-Iglesias

Medio Campidano

Ogliastra

Olbia-Tempio





FLAG OF SARDINIA





Cagliari

Nuoro

Oristano

Sassari





 
The following four provinces have been created by the Sardinian regional government, but still have to be recognized by the Italian government:



Carbonia-Iglesias

Medio Campidano

Ogliastra

Olbia-Tempio

                                                                     


http://www.costarey.net/english_sardegna.html

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                   MENHIR AT GONI










PREHISTORY: NEOLITHIC



The beginning of Sardinia's prehistory can be dated to the arrival of cardial impressed ware early in the sixth millennium BCE, probably brought by colonizers from Corsica or from the continent via Corsica. From the earliest period, Sardinia was in contact with extra-insular communities in Corsica, Liguria, Lombardy and Provence as is attested by the presence of obsidian from Sardinia in those regions. The earliest Neolithic, although best attested at coastal sites, is also found in the interior of the island. This culture evolved into an epicardial horizon, called Filiestru, which further evolved into the Middle-Neolithic culture known as Bonu Ighinu (ca. 4500 - 4000 BCE). Continued exportation of Sardinian obsidian to the continent finds a reflex in Sardinia in ceramic parallels with a wider range of cultures in the 5500-4000 BCE horizon in N. Italy and Provence. Throughout the Cardial and Filiestru periods, the size of the known sites suggests that society was based on small bands, perhaps no more than individual extended families, whose economy was based largely on herding and foraging supplemented by small-scale cultivation of grain and legumes. Settlement in the Bonu Ighinu period is both more widespread and more developed. Although caves continued to be utilized as habitation sites, open air villages were now more numerous, and some of these would develop into fairly large villages in the succeeding Late Neolithic. These villages and other Bonu Ighinu settlements are well sited for exploitation of the fertile river valleys and do not seem to show a preference for defended hill spurs. Exportation of obsidian continued and expanded; it seems likely that by now local groups exercised control over the obsidian sources and that trade might have been mediated through the coastal villages.  The growth of the trade in obsidian suggests the development of social and economic hierarchies, which find their material manifestations in jewelry and fine pottery in mortuary contexts. During this period occur the first indications of cultural interactions, either direct or indirect, with the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean.




'MATER MEDITERRANEA'
OZIERI CULTURE


By the around the end of the fifth millennium BCE, Bonu Ighinu had evolved into the Late Neolithic S. Michele or Ozieri culture, which endured for about half a millennium or a bit more (ca. 4000-3200 BCE). This was a period of profound, often rapid, changes and marked increases in prosperity that began in the eastern Mediterranean (notably in Gerzean Egypt) and southeastern Europe (notably associated with Gumelnitsa metallurgy) and rippled westward. About forty percent of the known Ozieri sites are on low ridges overlooking the Campidano of Cagliari and the lagoon of Cabras; only 8 of 127 known Ozieri sites had a Bonu Ighinu antecedent, so that most of these late Neolithic settlements are the result of population expansion and internal colonization, although some immigration is not to be excluded. Except for a small number of habitations in caves, Ozieri was a culture of unwalled open air villages with marked social and economic hierarchies. The most visible traces of the Ozieri period are the approximately 2000 rock-cut tombs usually known locally as domus de janas ("witches' houses").




 S. Andrea Priu Domus de Janas


 These probably derive from Bonu Ighinu period artificial caverns used for burials, which are not quite true rock-cut tombs but prototypes and which date to earlier than the Middle Neolithic examples at Serra d'Alto and Arnesano on the continent. During the latter phases of this horizon, large stone architecture makes its first appearance at the sacred site of Monte d'Accoddi-Sassari, an artificial "high place" with a ramp and village. A modest number of Ozieri period sites, mostly excavated quite recently, has produced small amounts of metallic objects, both silver and copper, dating before the end of the fourth millennium BCE. Although any or all of the individual objects could have been imports, three huts in the village of Su Coddu-Selargius have provided evidence for metallurgy, demonstrating the existence of an active extractive and processing industry in the late Neolithic, so we may now consider the Late Neolithic as transitional to the Chalcolithic or Copper Age. A late Neolithic cist grave at Li Muri-Arzachena with close parallels at Pranu Muteddu-Goni included a steatite cup with spool handles, the best referent of which is the Diana culture (ca. 3700 BCE), which knew copper metallurgy.

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COPPER AGE



In Sardinia, the Copper Age is almost coterminous with the third millennium BCE. It is characterized by a proliferation of "cultures" that are essentially regional variations of sub- and post-Ozieri, transitional to the Bronze Age nuragic culture. One of these pre-nuragic cultures, Abealzu-Filigosa, is known from only a few sites, mainly in the northern and central portions of the island. Large stone architecture now develops into the first defensive structures, at S. Giuseppe and Juanne Buldu-Padria and Sa Corona-Villagreca; this architectural development suggests the further evolution of society and economy wrought by the still nascent metal industry and increasing population. Roughly contemporaneous with Abealzu-Filigosa is Monte Claro, which is the predominant culture of the south; about 80% of the known Monte Claro sites are located from the Gulf of Oristano southward. At some sites, both cultures are attested in the same stratigraphical layers, and a vessel found in Murroccu Cave-Urzulei combines the two, resembling in form Abealzu-Filigosa vessels, while its workmanship and decorative scoring are Monte Claro. In several different places, we have Monte Claro burials of individuals in crouched position virtually identical to a Bonu Ighinu example from Cuccuru S'Arriu-Cabras.  Particularly instructive is the transformation of a cist grave into a giants' tomb (i.e., the classic nuragic period burial type) with classic Monte Claro pottery in the gallery at Su Cuaddu de Nixias-Lunamatrona, in effect blending two pre-existing Neolithic traditions of cists and galleries.  The photograph here shows the Giants' Tomb at Li Lolghi-Arzachena (courtesy of M. Balmuth).
Monte Claro megalithic architecture parallels Abealzu-Filigosa developments. The most notable site is Monte Baranta-Olmedo, a fortified enclosure strategically located on a plateau above water sources and a fertile valley; here, a circle of menhirs demonstrates continuity with the Ozieri period, while a horseshoe-shaped enclosure, which probably had small wooden structures on the enclosing wall, is evidently a prototype of the earliest nuraghi. Another village fortified with a megalithic wall on the plateau of Monte Ossoni-Castelsardo has associated Monte Claro pottery. The village of Biriai-Oliena is composed largely of rectangular, absidal huts several of which anticipate the later "megaron" type temples at nearby Serra Orrios-Dorgali and S'Arcu e Is Forros-Villagrande. The excavated huts are in close proximity to a high-place sanctuary and may be associated with the cult, either as dwellings and work areas for sacerdotal specialists or as temporary dwellings for worshipers, anticipating nuragic sacred areas and modern cumbessias.

As to external contacts, both Monte Claro pottery and architecture have parallels with the Fontbouise culture of South France, while the pottery shares characteristic features of Piano Conte of South Italy and Sicily, both datable to the late fourth millennium (ca. 3500-3000) BCE. Bell Beaker material covering a long time span demonstrates continuing relationships with the western Mediterranean; it appears likely that Sardinia was the intermediary that brought Beaker materials to Tuscany and Sicily. Comb-impressed Beaker ware at one site and Beaker material in Ozieri or sub-Ozieri contexts at two sites give a terminus post quem of about 3000 BCE. In some sites, Monte Claro material has been found in association with Bell Beaker materials; elsewhere, Beaker material has been found stratigraphically above Monte Claro and/or in association with material of the final Chalcolithic phase, known as Bonnanaro, for which the two existing C-14 dates calibrate to ca. 2250 BCE.

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NURAGIC (BRONZE AND IRON) AGE



During these phases (or differing horizons of a single phase) of the Chalcolithic, megalithic architecture evolved into fortifications known collectively as protonuraghi (also pseudonuraghi, corridor or gallery nuraghi), essentially rectangular, ovoid or circular raised platforms on top of which one or more huts were constructed. The platforms were furnished with a gallery, one or more chambers (which probably evolved toward greater complexity over time), and (usually, but not always) a stairway to the upper level. Eventually, some of the interior chambers became corbelled, undoubtedly foreshadowing the eventual transformation of protonuraghi into corbelled tholoi or true nuraghi, the characteristic feature of the Bronze Age and of the actual countryside. Most nuraghi were simple, single-towered structures, but some were made more elaborate by the addition of a walled courtyard and even by the addition of a second tower to the walled courtyard. A few, apparently in a series of additions, became even more developed, while by about 1200 BCE a small number were transformed into veritable fortresses with multiple-towered, interconnected external bastions. Although in many instances the plans of these structures may be similar, they vary enormously in size and complexity--and in wealth and power. In most cases, they may be considered the centers of tribal or sub-tribal units that have traditionally been labeled cantons.
 

Most, if not all, nuraghi had associated villages and there are many nuragic villages without nuragic towers: in the territory of Dorgali, 67 of 78 known villages have no nuraghe at all; 7 have a single towered nuraghe and only 4 have complex nuraghi. With few exceptions, the huts in these villages are circular stone constructions that would have supported thatched roofs; their interior diameters range from about 5 to about 8 meters. In some cases, several huts are interconnected, appearing to form part of a single domicile; an apparently later development is the appearance of groups of interconnected huts around a courtyard, each group remaining isolated from its counterparts, perhaps the dwellings of the villages' elites. Evidence for the social and economic activities of nuragic villages is exiguous. We have large numbers of grinding implements and storage vessels and some remains of grain, barley, grapes and almonds. Faunal remains attest to the continued importance of hunting alongside stockraising, and almost every village has yielded evidence for the production of wool and cheese. Copper and bronze were worked in some villages, but it is excessive to suggest that these were widespread cottage industries. An extensive obsidian industry continued.

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SACRED WELL OF S. VITTORIA-SERRI





                   Probably the most important and certainly the most visible of nuragic cults is that of water.



As far as we know at present, the earliest attested water cult site is that at Abini-Teti, where votive offerings dateable to the early Bonnanaro period have been found; votive offerings at the spring of Sos Malavidos-Orani date to later Bonnanaro.

In their most fully developed form the water cult focuses on "sacred wells," most of which are associated with nuragic villages.

Many of these sacred sites have yielded remarkable amounts of bronze objects (as below), jewelry and imports. Some of these sites were surely the religious centers of tribes or confederations whose names are known from later texts and inscriptions, but any attempt to make direct correlations seems an exercise in futility. It was at such centers that the Romans found attacking the natives most efficient (Strabo 5.2.7).


There is virtually no evidence in Sardinia of external contacts in the late third and early second millennia apart from late Beakers and the remarkably close parallels, perhaps fortuitous, between Bonnannaro pottery and that of the North Italian Polada culture.

By the fifteenth century, international trade was again in full swing and by about 1400 if not earlier, Sardinia was an integral part of a commercial network that extended from the Near East to Northwestern Europe.

The principal eastern component of this network was Cyprus, and it seems that the peak period of the Sardinia-Cyprus nexus was the twelfth century; it is evident that the connection continued to the end of the second millennium or even beyond when it can be considered part of the Phoenician trade.

During the high-water period of Cypriot trade, Sardinia was also in direct and/or indirect contact with the Mycenaean world. It seems at least arguable that indigenous Sardinians, known in the east as Sherden, were carriers of some of the eastern material found on the island. 



Nuragic Bronze Figurine.




http://www.usd.edu/erp/Sardinia/prehist.htm

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                                                Brief signs on ancient Sardinia 






Archaeology

The Historical and Geographic regions of Sardinia

Chronology of the ancient Sardinia




The more ancient traces of man's presence in Sardinia go back to the Lower Palaeolithic (around 500.000 years ago): they are tools in flint, recovered in Perfugas and Laerru (SS) territories.

After an apparent void of millennia, it actually reaches the Upper Palaeolithic (around 12.000 B. C.); to this period go back the deers' remains bones recovered in the Cave Corbeddu of Oliena (NU), that introduce indirect traces (combustion, manufacturing) of the contemporary presence of man.

By the same Cave Corbeddu, from a stratum dated with Radiocarbon method at 7.444 + 380 B.C., come from the most ancient human remains found in the isle.

In the Ancient Neolithic (6.000-4.000 B.C.) there are in Sardinia the first cultural demonstrations of relief; the ceramic appears, sometimes decorated with instrumental impression or using the edge of cardium edule ("cardiale ceramic").

In comparison with the Palaeolithic, several lithic tools are realized in small dimensions and with a more accurate manufacturing (stung of arrow, chisels, knives etc.).

The discovery of agriculture and breeding is of this period, attested to the recovery of pestles and mills in stone, of cereal seeds and bones of pets.

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It is moreover certified the ossidiana of Arci Mountain exploitation and commerce, which will be
exported to Corsica, Tuscany, Emilia, Liguria, to southern France and, perhaps, also in the Catalogna.

In the medium Neolithic (around 4.000 - 3.500 B.C.) it develops the culture of Bonuighinu, establish-
ment in cave or in the open; the first funeral artificial small caves are also dug in this period

(Cuccuru Arrius - Cabras).


                                                                   

The ceramic is often characterized by a refined decoration. The statuettes of "Mother Goddess", represented
as a woman in obese form, belong to this period.

The Late Neolithic (around 3.500 - 2.500 B.C.) is represented by the Culture of Ozieri, diffused in the whole Island. The establishment increase and the built-up areas often assume notable dimensions.

This is the phase in which will develop the funeral hypogeal architecture with thousand graves - the "domus de janas" - in that are sometimes represented symbols of spirituality (taurine protomi, spirals, false doors, etc.) or also the houses architectural elements of alive people (pillars, beams of the roof, seats, hearths etc.).

The ceramic introduces a rich repertoire of vascular forms and decorative motives realized with different techniques.

At the end of the Last Neolithic, the megalithic phenomenon (dolmen and menhir) spreads in the island: the tomb circles of the Gallura and the burials of Pranu Mutteddu (Gani (CA)) funeral complex are of this period

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                                    PRE-NURAGHIC MEGALITHS











During the Copper Age (around 2.500- 1.800 B.C.) there is a at first the gradual passage from the
Ozieri Culture to those of Filigosa and Abelazu, characterized the first one from vases with angular profile and the second from typical flask vases.

There is a notable impoverishment by the cultural side in comparison with the previous phase of Ozieri: this is due to the gradual hostility among the people which contemporaneously pervades whole the Mediterranean basin.

The burial, in the Neolithic domus de janas, goes on in this period and they dig of new; near the dolmenic graves it appears the "armies" menhir statues of Sarcidano.

The presence of the "Bell Form Vase" culture places in the island between the Copper Age and the Bronze one. It is a cultural current that will be observed also in other European areas and which seems to consolidate in Sardinia, almost peacefully, with the native populations.


                       


The Bonnanaro Culture develops in its more ancient phase (1800 - 1500 B. C.) in the Bronze Age,
which is characterized by a ceramic in greater part unadorned and with very particular handles.

In this period the megalithic burials evolve into a kind of grave with a lengthened room, preamble to
the typical nuraghic burial: the "giants' grave."