Santu Antine ("Saint Constantine"), also known as Sa domo de su re ("The house of the king" in the
Sardinian language
Sardinian or Sard ( , or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language spoken by the Sardinians on the Western Mediterranean island of Sardinia.
Many Romance linguists consider it the language that is closest to Latin among all its genealogica ...
) is a
nuraghe
The nuraghe (, ; plural: Logudorese Sardinian , Campidanese Sardinian , Italian ), or also nurhag in English, is the main type of ancient megalithic edifice found in Sardinia, developed during the Nuragic Age between 1900 and 730 B.C. To ...
(ancient megalithic edifice built by the
Nuragic Civilization) in
Torralba, one of the largest in
Sardinia
Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...
. It is located in the centre of the Cabu Abbas plain. The main structure was built around the 19-18th century BC, and the other parts of the nuraghe date back to the 17th–15th century BC. The main tower originally reached a height of 23–24 metres and contains three tholoi chambers on top of each other. The central tower with diameter of 15 metres is 17 metres high. Santu Antine is made of huge basalt blocks. It has three floors. The top floor is now gone. Some 27 meters long corridors built with the corbel arch technique can be observed inside of the Nuraghe, superimposed on two floors, the Nuraghe was provided with three wells.
Near the Nuraghe lie the remains of a Nuragic village.
The nuraghe has also been studied several times from an
archaeoastronomic point of view, and these studies have shown how its structure is oriented following the solstices. These claims were supported, among others, by the archaeologist Ercole Contu and archaeostronomists Mauro Peppino Zedda, Juan Antonio Belmonte and Michael Hoskin. In particular, Hoskin, science historian and emeritus professor at
Churchill College in Cambridge, called Santu Antine "the most sophisticated
dry stone
Dry stone, sometimes called drystack or, in Scotland, drystane, is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. Dry stone structures are stable because of their construction m ...
monument on earth's surface".
See also
*
Nuragic civilization
Bibliography
* Il Nuraghe Santu Antine,
Ercole Contu The male first name Ercole, Italian version of Hercules, can refer to:
People
* Ercole (name), list of people with the name
House of D'Este
*Ercole I d'Este (1431–1505), Duke of Ferrara
*Ercole II d'Este (1508–1559), Duke of Ferrara, Modena a ...
, 1988.
PDF available at Sardegna Digital Library.
*
References
External links
*
Tharros.info: Site Description Nuraghe Santu Antine
Monuments and memorials in Italy
Buildings and structures in Sardinia
Megalithic monuments in Italy
Tourist attractions in Sardinia
Archaeological sites in Sardinia
Nuraghe
{{italy-archaeology-stub