Nuraghe Santu Antine – Sardinia, Italy

Hi Folks!

This, my friends, is a nuraghe. Nuraghes were built by Nuragic people; I do not think the similarity in the name of the people and the construction is a coincidence. Nuragic people inhabited Sardinia some 3000 years ago up to the second century AD. There are over 7 thousand nuraghes in Sardinia. I have heard that nuraghes are not very popular these days, and I guess it is understandable. For instance in Costa Smeralda (a very posh area in Sardinia) some houses cost over 300.000 EUR per square meter (I know, sounds unbelievable but Costa Smeralda is the priciest place in Europe). Imagine owning a house over there and then your kids start begging: “daddy, mommy please buy us a trampoline”. Now you already paid a few millions for the house and the backyard, but just cannot fit a trampoline on your yard when there’s already a patio, possibly a pool and definitely a barbeque and then! An ancient nuraghe takes most of the space. In those moments you might begin to wonder how on earth could I get rid of the nuraghe or would it just be easier to buy a bigger lot. After all, the nuraghe has been sitting there for couple of thousand years before You.

Santu Antine is one of the largest nuraghes in Sardinia. It used to be some kind of a fortress. I guess there isn’t a clear consensus on the function of the nuraghes – we know quite little of the people who built them. I would be surprised if Nuragic had been that much different from you and me. And that’s why I am quite confident assuming that Nuragic lived in Nuraghes. I mean it would have kind of been non-intelligent to build a nuraghe and then sleep next to it in a hole in the ground.

– Gart