Civico Museo Archeologico Ittireddu

Hall 4: Nuragic Era

Hall four presents the theme of Nuragic paleoeconomics, focusing on agriculture and metallurgy, attested to by artefacts found in Monte Zuighe and Nuraghe Funtana, displayed in the showcase. The economy of the protohistory was based on pastoralism and agriculture; however it is also worth mentioning the important role of trades and long distance exchanges of prestige goods, men and objects. Since the 14^th century and for some hundreds of years, Sardinia has been at the heart of trades also as an active participant, as suggested by the artefacts coming from the Mediterranean area, from East to West. At the same time, the Island saw the appearance of artefacts from the Aegean area, Mycenae, Cyprus, Philistia or Syro-Palestine, Iberian Peninsula and mainland Italy.

On the map depicted on the panel we have highlighted two “symbolic” features of this economy of which we still have some important documents preserved from Nuraghe Funtana: metal, thanks to the finding of a four-handled jug covered by a bowl containing some copper bars, and wine, thanks to the finding of the small jug with tubular neck, a typical Nuragic shape which saw its greatest diffusion in the Mediterranean somewhere between the 10th century B.C. and the 9th century B.C., in particular in Spain and the Villanovan mining Etruria. The insular origin and the reproduction of the jug also in a later time suggest its aesthetic value and its functionality as a container for substances of value such as wine, as attested to by the organic residue analysis carried out on some of these samples (one of these came from Ittireddu).

The main attraction of the hall is the scale model of the nuraghe of Ittireddu.