Just outside of Olbia, near the north-eastern coast of Sardinia, is the Giant Tomb Su Mont'e s'Abe a 4-thousand year old prehistoric monument laid out like the head of a bull, a Nuragic divinity. Unlike the thousands of other graves of its kind, here the deceased were buried together. The sacred rites were performed in the funerary room but, unlike elsewhere, no funerary documents were found in the sacred well to accompany the dead to his or her encounter with the divinity.
The building was constructed in two phases. In the first phase, which dates to the period of the Bonnanaro culture, the tomb was built in the allée couverte manner (a sort of elongated dolmen); then, around the year 1600 BCE, it was transformed into a Giant Tomb with exedra and stele, traces of which can still be seen. The building, which was originally built in the shape of a bull’s head, the divinity responsible for generating life, had a semicircle in front of it. At the centre of the exedra is a 4m tall granite stele and, at the base, a small opening that led to the funerary chamber within. This chamber is 10m long, while the entire structure outside, still visible today, is 28m long and 6m wide, one of Sardinia’s largest.
Fondazione Sardegna Film Commission
Via Malta 63 — 09124 Cagliari
Phone: +39 070 2041961
Email: filmcommission@regione.sardegna.it
