We pressed on to Mura Cuada tombi di giganti in the midday heat, which is right by a railway line. If you do follow Julian's instructions to reach it, as Sals says, DO NOT walk on the railway line! Trains run on this line. We walked just to one side of the track out of the way of any passing rolling stock. Julian is spot on with his '355 paces' though.
What a surprising place it is; less of a tomba di giganti and more of a Menorcan naveta with arms! This tomba has no stele; instead it has just an entrance hole in the front wall, which forms a very curved forecourt.
Moth squeezed inside, but I was not wearing clothing suitable to join him in there. He said he could easily stand up and it was exactly like a naveta.
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There's a small peep hole about the size of a football directly above the well at ground level through which light passes. Apparently, when the moon shines over it at one point in its 18.6 year cycle it completely fills the hole. (Sound familiar, Callanishistas?) I managed to suppress my horrible small girl urge to spit through it and listen for the splash at the bottom.
To get down to the well you pass through a trapezoid-shaped hole and decend down into the ground on a stone staircase. The steps and the corbelling is so fresh and crisp that you feel it could have been built yesterday, though Julian in TME says that this is original stonework. If he's right, then this is truly astonishing. Likewise the beehivey conical corbelling leading up from the well to the peephole at ground level – incredible stonework. It really does look modern.
I descended down the crisp, steep staircase (suppressing further girlish urges, this time to kick out my feet and sing "New York, New York") about 3 metres below ground level to the water. Down there it was refreshingly cool; perhaps 10degC lower in temperature, but then it was 35degC outside.
Though I'm not big into wells, this one's a must-see.
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Despite having both Julian's and Sals' instructions on how to find it, we drove round in circles for some time, unable to find the right road, but knowing we were close. I was on the point of giving up but Moth wanted one final push trying to find it from Loiri. Eventually, we did find the lane signposted by a hilltop castle.
It's almost the most remarkable monument on the island but lacks its stele which was stolen in the early 20th century for a garden ornament and is now lost. With a 28' chamber and hugely wide forecourt lined with an original low seating area directly in front of the forecourt stones it feels very theatrical – like a stage- and hints at the way people might have used the space. Perhaps participants in the forecourt ceremonies sat around within the space rather than watching from the outside.
I liked the way the airport was so close – you know, ancient and modern… I liked seeing the planes landing and taking off through the space between the stones where the enormous stele should be. And there's no doubt that the stele would have been enormous, my guess is at least 12' tall if it was in proportion with the rest of the site.This post appears as part of the blog post " Love's labours lost and found" |
As we'd exited the S131 on our way to Thomes earlier, I'd seen a single forlorn sign to Lotoni tombi di giganti, but hadn't seen any other signs. Typical. When I mentioned it to Moth, he said he'd found some information on Lotoni, but it was sketchy and in a bad comedy English translation from Google. Lotoni is pictured on page 440 of TME, but that naughty Julian Cope gives no instructions on how to find it. We only knew roughly where it was. So we headed roughly in that direction. And found it!
Someone at one time had once given a toss about this site, there was the remnant of an information board, but the toss had been taken back. It was in a very sorry state. Overgrown, horribly overgrown, and now fenced in with barbed wire, a wooden pallet and some dry thorny branches leaning up against the place which obviously used to be the way in. So I tore down this rudimentary barrier, stomped a hole big enough to squeeze through the rusty barbed wire and waded in through the tangled low bushes. And to show that someone does care and did visit, I spent a moment stomping down tall weeds in the forecourt by the stele.
Like Pascaredda, Lotoni's stele lacks an upper arch and has a very low cat flap, too small for even a toddler to crawl through. But even lacking these features this is a good tomba – good for surviving in the face of this cruel neglect, good for its stones are still up – and big, too! Despite the feeling that Lotoni is forgotten, even trespassing on its own property, I liked it here.
So close to its show-site and glamorous neighbour just up the road, Thomes, it is very sad to think that this labour of love by its builders could be so badly neglected.This post appears as part of the blog post " Love's labours lost and found" |
Walking through bushveldt on a sandy track from the car park we could hear the tinkle of bells from a herd of goats grazing near the tomba.
The monument is wonderful with an intact covered grave corridor running out behind and lots of nice slabs forming the forecourt. I was intrigued by the stele – cut in the classic way but with wonky asymmetry in the top arch. The cat flap is less archy than others I'd seen, and more squared off – but that wonkiness at the top was also reflected in the shape of the aperture – leaning slightly left. A New Labour construction perhaps I wondered as I sat and sketched it and a party of German tourists filed past.This post appears as part of the blog post " Love's labours lost and found" |
It's just by the main road north of Sassari - this surely was a beacon of a place that every traveller in this corner of the island would have known in ancient times.
Just our luck then, that when we arrived, it was closed for maintenance – mostly strimming. But there was no way we were going to go away, so we promised the foreman we'd just walk around it. Of course once he'd driven off to get his lunch, we legged it up onto the top flat stony platform perhaps 10 metres from ground level.
I was so impressed with it. I thought of some of the world's greatest step pyramids – Tikal in Guatemala and Saqqara in Egypt, though it was smaller and less steeply sided than both. Perhaps it started at a simple sacred stone platform, like the marae of the South Pacific, and was added to over the generations. It certainly looked like a monument which has been successively improved and added to over the ages – the massive square cut stele next to the sloping approach ramp, the flatcapped dolmen in the 'moat' area and that crazy bonkers mad pockmarked cosmic egg... (actually more of a giant lemon) all hinted at a place in use over many, many centuries, with additions made in memory perhaps of battles, new gods, revered leaders and so on.
There is so much here to ponder and I absolutely loved it.
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I do like rock cut tombs. So it was inevitable that the necropolis of Anghelu Ruju, not far from Alghero airport, would thrill me. I didn't really know what I'd be faced with as I entered this unassuming flat field, today sizzling in the afternoon sun; but I certainly didn't expect quite such richness, variety, ingenuity and technical rock-cutting wizardry on such a whopping and obsessive scale.
All the tombs here, and there are more than 26 of them opened up in an area no bigger than a football field, are cut directly in the rock underfoot, sculpted with slopey-down entrance passages to reach the first of (often) many small burial chambers. Further chambers morph off from each other to create a rambling honeycomb of cells and passages connected by square cut openings just wide enough for person to squeeze through. Some traces of decorative carvings remain; bull's heads, false lintels, circles and in one particularly large tomb two supporting pillars have been carved.
I imagined the paintings that I felt sure that must once have graced the walls of these cells – images of totemic animals, zigzags, stripes, and wiggly lines perhaps symbolizing water or light, stylised bulls, round discs signifying the sun, the moon and stars perhaps, rendered in ochres and umbers. It seems inconceivable that these tombs weren't decorated.
How many more of these subterranean rock cut tombs are yet to be discovered? My best guess is 'lots' and they're almost certainly not far away.
Fitz's detailed description (below) says more than I possibly can.
If you go to Sardinia, this is a 'must see'. In fact go to Sardinia just to see it. Budget airlines now go to Alghero.
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This naturally occurring rock stands quite alone at the roadside.
We wondered if the locals had chipped bits off through the ages to make it appear more like a pachyderm. Whether it was the locals or if it was from the hand of the Great Sculpture in the Sky, they'd made a very good job because the elephantness is startling.
Ancient people also thought so, for there is evidence of this being a place they know and revered; square holes have been deeply carved into the base of it, perhaps for offerings.
It is now inhabited entirely by lizards. Watch out for the knife and tat salesmen in the layby.
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Wading through this natural rock garden, more worthy of a prize than anything at the Chelsea flower show, we found Ladas dolmen, which is actually a bit of a mess.
But today on its rock garden perch, partially shaded by cork oaks it looks fab. It has two capstones still up one if which is very large indeed. Internally, it's partly supported by wooden pillars, unfortunately.
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A little bit out of Luras, perhaps 1 km, in its own little walled enclosure protected from the verdant olive trees and cork oaks is dolmen Bilella.
Constructed on a curious split level rock platform its supporting stones are therefore of different heights – as if stepping downstairs. It has a nice capstone with a pleasing curve on the top and dead flat on the underside. But something about it didn't quite ring true – possibly a poor or fanciful reconstruction perhaps to make the site seem more poetic? We couldn't quite work it out.
This was something to ponder as we sat and tucked into our pizza, listening to the deafening soundtrack of songbirds and trying to catch glimpses of the singers – finches, bunting and flycatchers for sure, though exactly which species I couldn't say.
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This tiny, unobtrusive and very simple construction is hardly worth a glimpse in the context of Sardinia. But if it was in, say, an Oxfordshire field, people would come from miles. Alzoledda has its own reserved patch of ground on the edge of town and is policed by three pretty cats from the house which overlooks it.
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Tucked away in the most arcadian, peaceful valley in the world (possibly) just to the east of Tempio is Pascaredda tomba di giganti. Striding through seas of grasses and flowers following a path beside a tree lined stream of bucolic perfection, we arrived at a clearing surrounded by the gnarly ancient cork oaks to find this sweetest of tombi, complete with much of its barrow.
Thirteen out of 14 of its original capstones are still in place covering its deep tomb corridor. The curved arms of its forecourt stones sweep round elegantly each side of the stele. The stele is unusual in that it only has the bottom square with catflap – it lacks the arched top section that we'd seen at Coddhu Vecchju or Li Lolghi. Not that it mattered – this place was exquisite. Moth and I both looked for signs that it once has an arched topped, but found nothing to suggest it had.
With purple orchids in flower among the more than 16 species of flowering grasses and birdsong filling the warm scented air, this place is nothing less than orgasmic.
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Just outside Tempio is Nuraghe Majori, my first nuraghe. This one is run as a tourist attraction with shop, café, loos and a stuffed wild boar. Picking our way through the cork oaks (which were festooned with hairy caterpillars hung freakily from long silken threads waiting to ambush me) we finally arrived at the nuraghe.
Made of huge blocks of stone piled up carefully to create thick walls, they look like Menorcan talaiots, the difference is that nuraghes have internal chambers, perhaps used for food storage, would be my guess as they were very cool and dark inside. This one had two corbelled chambers leading off from the main corridor, an in one hung some sweet little bats right up in the apex. The corridor continued through the wall and spiralled up and out into an higher external platform giving great views all around.
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Li Lolghi has the most terrific reveal. Walking up a little track past the biglietteria (ticket booth) you turn a corner and suddenly it's there like an old friend standing on a hilltop waving 'ciao!'
Because it stands at the top of a little rise it looks even bigger - and it's pretty damned big to begin with. Li Lolghi's stele is more tapered in shape than arched and the chunk missing at the top simply adds character and charm.
Indeed it's so spectacular that I actually shivered in delight when I pressed myself against its pink lichen covered warm flatness.The slabs that form the monument's curved arms are equally flat and reminded me of the squary flatness of some of the stones at Callanish.This post appears as part of the blog post " Enchanted by our first two tombi di giganti" |
Coddhu Vecchju has, like most other tombi di giganti a forecourt area or 'esedra', formed by a line of stones sweeping curvaceously out from either side of the centrally placed stele.
As I stood before Coddhu Vecchju, I had the feeling that the tomb's curved arms were embracing me. This was a feeling that I would have again and again as I visited various T di Gs.
The tomb chamber itself runs back behind the stele and like most other tombi we saw, is constructed like a French allee couverte. Coddhu Vecchju's chamber is in good condition and retains most of its capstones.
Coddhu Vecchju is built on a slight gradient as the land rise gently out of a thickly wooded valley with a stream running along the bottom. So the curved arms of the tomb are not flat, they have been constructed so they echo the lie of the land – the west arm held up and the east arm down, like being embraced by a dancing partner.
The land rises more sharply on the other side of the stream and is now cultivated with lines of vines. This tomb was not meant to be seen in the landscape by all passers by like West Kennett, it is more hidden, private, intimate.
I was enraptured with the place. It wouldn't be the last time we'd see it.This post appears as part of the blog post " Enchanted by our first two tombi di giganti" |
27 May 2008
Up in the hills is the small bronze age temple of Malchittu. Readers who know me know I'm not much of a walker; I stumble and fall a lot, so have to look at my feet ALL the time, I have a dodgy knee going downhill and am generally lazy. But despite the 2km walk up to it (UP being the operative word) I thought I'd go for it anyway. It was a nice day after all and we were in no hurry.
The sandy, easy-to-walk-on path wound gently through beautiful farmland of small grassy meadows and trees until it started to rise and climb into the rocky scrub of the granite-bouldered mountain. Curling around, the path reaches the rounded high point of the mountain where the little oval temple had been built.
And there's still something to admire – the thick walls, including the gable end, still had its doorway and niche above. The fact that someone bothered to build a temple here up on this rocky mountain is what impressed me. I wondered if there was spring nearby – I had noticed some damp runnels on the path nearby, but couldn't see the water source.
I think I only stumbled twice and even had time to stop and look at the amazing views!
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27 May 2008
Across the road from Albucciu is the trashed tomba di giganti of Moru. With no impressive stele or forecourt slabs it felt very sad. Nevertheless, the long chamber is still long and deep and still has one capstone up. It was in desperate need of a strim!
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27 May 2008
We'd driven past the Nuraghe Albucciu every day for the past seven days, so as our time in Sardinia came to an end, we thought we'd better take a look at it even though we're not nuraghistas. This one did impress me though.
I liked the way the builders had used the natural outcrop of granite boulders to build the nuraghe around an morph into the landscape. The usual huge blocks of drystone were used to build it and it had the usual corbelled side-chambers and corridor leading up to a platform area at the top. Today it is surrounded by cork oaks and olive trees, and a curious natural overhanging rock feature stood right next to the tower structure. This impressed me more than anything.
The smooth expansive wall beneath the overhang reminded me of exactly the sort of place where I have seen Australian aboriginal rock paintings and Jordanian and San petroglyphs. I wondered if these smooth rock walls had once been painted with ochres and umbers showing animal and sacred symbols. I looked for any evidence but of course found nothing except tiny bees' nests, cobwebs and lichen.
And beneath the rocks was a small low gap (which I probably could have squeezed through had I been being chased by a fire-breathing angry bull), through which I could see a number of chambers had been carved into – almost cave-like but absolutely (wo)man-made.
I was surprised to find I liked this nuraghe because I could 'people' it in my mind. It seemed like a very comfortable place to live. It even had a potential (or long forgotten) art gallery space!
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23 May 2008
The drive up to Li Mizzani is up and down - and up again! - a narrow twisting lane into the mountains which was quite dramatic and good fun, but not as dramatic as the monument itself.
Set among scrubby, sandy bushveldt, alive with flowers and buzzing with insects and birds, this is a strange tomba di giganti compared to others. The stone is slightly different shape – more of a lozenge with wide feet, and with no carving. And all the big slabby stones which would have formed the arms reaching out either side of the stele are gone. All that remains is a low wall that marks the forecourt. Perhaps it never had slabs?
We climbed up onto what appeared to be a gorsedd stone just metres away from the back of the tomb to observe where the stele appeared to point at a cleft in the distant mountains. Hmmm. I wasn't entirely convinced. Everything points to something if you look hard enough.
We met an Italian professional photographer there who, rather charmingly for these days, still shot on film. He was fascinated by our photocopied pages on Sardinia from TME. "Where did you get this?" he asked. I wrote down the name of the book, author and the URL of this website for him.
And up here, the trees seemed to be alive with goldfinches.
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23 May 2008
Close to Li Lolghi is the small megalithic cemetery of Li Muri, consisting of five cairns with cists. Carefully constructed and equally carefully restored, it didn't overwhelm me, in fact I hardly felt whelmed at all, but I was very interested to see other tombs in the region which weren't tombi di giganti.
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Habitat: Commonly sighted in fields round Oxfordshire and Wiltshire.
Distribution: Widespread; occasional migrations to overwinter in Africa or other hot climes.
Characteristics: A tall, blonde, opinionated bird with feisty temper when provoked. Prone to spells of gloom during winter months. Usually sporting dark plumage, except for golden head, can often spotted with sketchbook and brushes near megalithic sites.
Feeding habits: Easily tempted with cheese (any variety) or a nice cup of tea. Unfeasibly fond of curry.
Behaviour: Unpredictable, approach cautiously. Responds very favourably to flattery.
Abhors: slugs, invisible sky gods, Tories, the Daily Mail, bigots, eggs, the cold, walking and timewasting.
Adores: a man called Moth, painting, live music, furry creatures, tea administered frequently, hot places, cheese, writing crap poetry, David Attenborough, Ernest Shackleton, Vincent van Gogh and the English language.
Want more?: see her website.
Big old rocks I find appealling
Their secrets they are not revealing
Some are chambers, some are tombs
Hidden in valleys and in combes
Some are said to act like clocks
With shadows cast out from their rocks
I like the way they just survive
When I visit, I feel alive
So I chase my rocks around the maps
Round England, Ireland and France, perhaps
But there ain't nothin' that I liked so much
As to see the Hunebedden, dem is Dutch.
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