Su Nuraxi di Barumini

Listen for a moment. The wind moves through dry grass, and somewhere a bird calls from the fields. Under your feet the ground is uneven, stony and warm. In front of you rises a mass of dark, rough-cut stone. The blocks sit on top of one another with no mortar between them, held by their own weight. You are standing beside one of the oldest large stone buildings in the western Mediterranean. Its builders never wrote down a single word.

This is Su Nuraxi, in the gentle farmland of south-central Sardinia, just outside the village of Barumini. The name comes from the Sardinian language and means simply "the nuraghe." A nuraghe is a stone tower, often shaped like a cone with the top cut off. They were built by the people of the Bronze Age culture that archaeologists call the Nuragic civilisation. Sardinia holds thousands of these towers. This one is the most complete and the best studied.

Let's start with the oldest part, the central tower at the heart of the complex. Archaeologists date its first construction to the middle of the second millennium before Christ. That is earlier than the founding of Rome by many centuries. The tower was built from large blocks of basalt, a dark volcanic stone. Today it stands lower than it once did, but experts believe it originally rose in several storeys, each one a round room stacked above the last.

Here is something many visitors do not expect. Those round rooms do not have flat ceilings or true arches. Instead, each ring of stone sits slightly further inward than the ring below it. Course by course, the walls lean together until they close at the top. This method is called a corbelled vault, or a tholos. When you enter the tower on your guided visit, look straight up — the stones curve over your head like the inside of a beehive.

Over time, the people of Su Nuraxi did not leave their tower alone. In a later phase, they wrapped it in a massive bastion with four more towers at its corners. The result looks almost like a castle, with a central keep and corner turrets. A courtyard sat between the old tower and the new walls, and it held a well. Later still, an outer curtain wall went up around everything, with more towers set along its length.

Now turn your attention to the ground around the fortress. Those low circles of stone are the foundations of huts. A whole village grew up around the walls, and at its peak it held many dwellings packed close together. People lived, cooked, stored grain and worked here. Over the centuries the village changed shape. Older round huts gave way to more complex houses, some with several rooms gathered around a small central courtyard.

One building in the village stands out. Archaeologists often call it the meeting hut. It is round and larger than most, with a stone bench running around the inside wall. Researchers believe village leaders or elders may have sat here together to talk and decide. Several objects found inside suggest it had a special role, possibly religious as well as political. Picture a ring of people on that bench, their faces lit by a fire.

So who built all this, and why? The honest answer is that much remains uncertain. The Nuragic people left no written records. What we know comes from their buildings, their tools, and their small bronze figurines, which show warriors, archers, and worshippers. Some researchers see the nuraghi as fortresses. Others see them as centres of local power, storage, or ritual. Many think they served all of these purposes at different times.

History did not stop at the walls. Around the eighth or seventh century before Christ, the fortress appears to have suffered serious damage, and the village was rebuilt afterward. Later, Sardinia fell under the control of Carthage, the great trading city of North Africa, and then of Rome. People continued to live at Su Nuraxi into the Roman period. Then, slowly, the site was abandoned, and soil and vegetation covered the ruins.

For centuries, this place looked like little more than a grassy hill. The story of its rediscovery belongs to one man. Giovanni Lilliu was an archaeologist born here in Barumini. In the 1950s he led the excavations that uncovered the fortress and the village beneath the earth. His work turned the hill into one of the most important sites for understanding prehistoric Sardinia. Lilliu became the leading scholar of Nuragic culture, and his name is still closely tied to this place.

In 1997, UNESCO added Su Nuraxi to its World Heritage List. The listing recognised it as an outstanding example of Nuragic building, a tradition found only on this island. As you walk, notice how the newer walls press against the older ones. You can often see where one building phase meets another. The stones change in size and finish. Some are huge and roughly shaped. Others are smaller and fitted more carefully.

Take a moment to look outward, beyond the walls. The land around Barumini is open and rolling, with fields, olive trees, and low hills on the horizon. From the top of the tower, the people here could watch the surrounding country for a long distance. Other nuraghi once stood within sight across this landscape. If you have time, visit the village itself. The Casa Zapata museum there was built above the remains of another nuraghe.

Before you leave, stand still once more near the central tower. Rest your hand on the stone if your guide allows it. It is rough, slightly warm from the sun, and pitted by time. People shaped and lifted this block more than three thousand years ago, without metal machines, without mortar, without writing. Listen again to the wind across the fields. It is probably very close to the sound the builders heard as they worked.