Giants of Mont'e Prama

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The Giants of Mont'e Prama (Italian: Giganti di Mont'e Prama; Sardinian: Zigantes de Mont'e Prama [dziˈɣantɛz dɛ ˈmɔntɛ ˈβɾama]) are ancient stone sculptures created by the Nuragic civilization of Sardinia, Italy. Fragmented into numerous pieces, they were discovered in March 1974 on farmland near Mont'e Prama, in the comune of Cabras, province of Oristano, in central-western Sardinia. The statues are carved in local sandstone and their height varies between 2 and 2.5 meters. After four excavation campaigns carried out between 1975 and 1979, the roughly five thousand pieces recovered – including fifteen heads and twenty two torsos – were stored for thirty years in the repositories of the National Archaeological Museum of Cagliari, while a few of the most important pieces were exhibited in the museum itself. Along with the statues, other sculptures recovered at the site include large models of nuraghe buildings and several baetyl sacred stones of the "oragiana" type, used by Nuragic Sardinians in the making of "giants' graves". After the funds allocation of 2005 by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the Sardinia Region, restoration was being carried out from 2007 until 2012...

Further information: Pre-Nuragic Sardinia, Ozieri culture, Abealzu-Filigosa culture, Venus figurine, and Art of the Upper Paleolithic

The first attestations of sculpture in Sardinia are much more ancient than the statues of Mont'e Prama. The oldest example is the figurine that is referred to as, the Venus of Macomer, in non finito technique, dated to 3750–3300 BC by the archaeologist Giovanni Lilliu, however, the archaeologist Enrico Atzeni has suggested that the statuette likely dates back to Early Neolithic (6000–4000 BC). More recent studies have stressed the similarities to the Venus figurines, already noticed by Giovanni Lilliu, and hypothesized a retro-dating to Upper Palaeolithic or Mesolithic Age.

Statuettes later than this one – but still pertaining to the Mother Goddess iconography – are many volumetric figurines produced by the Ozieri culture, among which is the idol of Perfugas, representing a goddess suckling her child. The same symbolism was later used by the Nuragic civilization with the so-called "Nuragic pietà".

After the three-dimensional figurines of the goddess – but still belonging to the Neolithic Age – are the idols in flat geometric style, that could represent the goddess in her chthonic aspect, in that all examples of this type of idol have been found inside graves.

Investigations carried out after the fortuitous discovery of a prehistoric altar at Monte d'Accoddi (Sassari), have revealed that – alongside the production of geometric figurines – the great statuary was already present at that time in Sardinia, given that at the "temple of Accoddi" several stelae and menhirs were recovered. Beside the ramp leading to the top of the main building, excavations revealed the presence of a great menhir, with several others positioned around it. A sculpted face, engraved with spiraliform patterns and probably belonging to a statue-stele, has been assigned to the earliest phase of the site – called the "red-temple". A large granite stele with a female figure in relief, has been attributed to the second phase – called the "great-temple".

Still in the time-frame of the Prenuragic age, but in this case during the Eneolithic period, there is a remarkable production of "Laconi-type" statue-menhirs or statue-stelae, assigned to the Abealzu-Filigosa culture and characterized by a uniform tripartite scheme encompassing, from top to bottom: a stylized T-shaped human face; the depiction of the enigmatic capovolto (the capsized) in the kind of trident capovolto ; and a double-headed dagger in relief.

After the spreading of Bonnanaro culture on the island, the tradition of the statue-stelae seems to die out, while it continues until 1200 BC with the Nuragic-related Torrean civilization facies of Corsica, featuring warriors represented in the Filitosa sculptures.

Further information: Pre-Nuragic Sardinia, Ozieri culture, Abealzu-Filigosa culture, Venus figurine, and Art of the Upper Paleolithic

The first attestations of sculpture in Sardinia are much more ancient than the statues of Mont'e Prama. The oldest example is the figurine that is referred to as, the Venus of Macomer, in non finito technique, dated to 3750–3300 BC by the archaeologist Giovanni Lilliu, however, the archaeologist Enrico Atzeni has suggested that the statuette likely dates back to Early Neolithic (6000–4000 BC). More recent studies have stressed the similarities to the Venus figurines, already noticed by Giovanni Lilliu, and hypothesized a retro-dating to Upper Palaeolithic or Mesolithic Age.

Statuettes later than this one – but still pertaining to the Mother Goddess iconography – are many volumetric figurines produced by the Ozieri culture, among which is the idol of Perfugas, representing a goddess suckling her child. The same symbolism was later used by the Nuragic civilization with the so-called "Nuragic pietà".

After the three-dimensional figurines of the goddess – but still belonging to the Neolithic Age – are the idols in flat geometric style, that could represent the goddess in her chthonic aspect, in that all examples of this type of idol have been found inside graves.

Investigations carried out after the fortuitous discovery of a prehistoric altar at Monte d'Accoddi (Sassari), have revealed that – alongside the production of geometric figurines – the great statuary was already present at that time in Sardinia, given that at the "temple of Accoddi" several stelae and menhirs were recovered. Beside the ramp leading to the top of the main building, excavations revealed the presence of a great menhir, with several others positioned around it. A sculpted face, engraved with spiraliform patterns and probably belonging to a statue-stele, has been assigned to the earliest phase of the site – called the "red-temple". A large granite stele with a female figure in relief, has been attributed to the second phase – called the "great-temple".

Still in the time-frame of the Prenuragic age, but in this case during the Eneolithic period, there is a remarkable production of "Laconi-type" statue-menhirs or statue-stelae, assigned to the Abealzu-Filigosa culture and characterized by a uniform tripartite scheme encompassing, from top to bottom: a stylized T-shaped human face; the depiction of the enigmatic capovolto (the capsized) in the kind of trident capovolto ; and a double-headed dagger in relief.

After the spreading of Bonnanaro culture on the island, the tradition of the statue-stelae seems to die out, while it continues until 1200 BC with the Nuragic-related Torrean civilization facies of Corsica, featuring warriors represented in the Filitosa sculptures.

Further information: Beaker culture in Sardinia and Bonnanaro culture During the Early Bronze Age the "epicampaniform style", a late expression of the Bell- Beaker culture, became spread both in Sardinia and Corsica. From this cultural period the Nuragic civilization would arise, paralleling similar architectural developments in southern Corsica, in such a way that the Gallura Nuragic facies shows a synchronic evolution with the Nuragic torrean civilization.

However, while common architectonic traditions of Central-Western Mediterranean evidence the close relationships between islands, it is exactly the sculpture tradition that begins to diversify. In fact, while Early Bronze Age Sardinia abandoned the traditions of Eneolithic statue-stelae, in Corsica the production of menhirs continued without interruption, eventually originating the Torrean statue-stelae during the Middle and Late Bronze Age.

An intermediate stage of this process could be represented by the appearance of hammered relief sculptures during the Middle Bronze Age – in both Sardinia and Corsica: in the former country, baetyls were engraved with male or female gender characters in relief, while in the latter – perhaps due to the greater presence of metal implements – relief sculpture was applied for the first time to menhirs. In both islands, anthropomorphic statuary in the strict sense of the word would not exist between 1600 and 1250 BC, but gender characteristics and weapons were represented in Sardinia and Corsica respectively. In a successive evolution stage, the relief technique was employed in Sardinia – for the first time after Eneolithic sculptures – to represent a human face, as shown in the famous baetyl of "San Pietro di Golgo" (Baunei).

There is no longer any dispute about the authenticity and Nuragic manufacture of the three statue-baetyls discovered in northern Sardinia, a region where a Corsican population of Nuragic culture was probably settled. At first the three statues were considered to be Punic or Roman artefacts, but these sculptures evidently portray warriors with an envelope-shaped, crested and horned nuragic helmet – as also suggested by the crest and by the circular cavities that probably held the horns (these latter still present in the statue-baetyl from Bulzi, Sassari).

According to the archaeologist Fulvia Lo Schiavo, the sculptures of northern Sardinia testify the existence of a Nuragic proto-statuary, an intermediate step of an evolutionary process that from the "eyed baetyls" of the "Oragiana type", would eventually lead to the anthropomorphic statues of Mont'e Prama. This hypothesis agrees with an earlier idea carried out by Giovanni Lilliu, following the examination of the "baetylus of Baunei ", where the famous archaeologist saw the abandonment of the ancient aniconic ideology and a revival of the human form representation: