ABSTRACT

The local populations’ perceptions of Sardinia’s Bronze Age monuments (the towers known as nuraghi and their associated tombs) vary considerably from the archaeologists’. One experience brought home to me how great the differences between the approaches are. A forest ranger had taken me to a well-preserved nuraghe (Figure 15.1) adjacent to a farmhouse and outbuildings. From a distance, the conical tower rising above the modern rectangular structures was an impressive sight. On closer inspection, this nuraghe was indeed a key feature in the life of the farm, but not as I had expected. Stones had been removed from its external wall to provide steps up. On the upper level stood a mangy dog attached by a heavy chain wrapped around one of the tower’s boulders, acting as a lookout. The ground-floor rooms were still intact and served as a shed, cluttered with farming equipment. Entering, we narrowly avoided tripping into a small trench just inside the doorway. The ranger scolded the farmer for this, a clear sign of clandestine digging, to which the man simply shrugged his

shoulders and grinned sheepishly. It was obvious that the tower was far from being the pride and joy of the farmers. While by law the nuraghi are the property of the state and meant to be preserved, in practice, preservation is loosely defined. As long as the basic structure of the building is kept intact, the farmers are given free rein. For this reason, there was no question of legal action over the trench. Overall, the nuraghe was in relatively good condition, and that was considered enough. A tenuous balance between protecting the past and supporting the present is maintained in this way. Instead of trying to block out all the modern ‘background noise’ so as to focus on the structure itself, I see that right now the structure is a shed, and a dog house, and a lookout point, and a source of curiosity, inseparable from all it has been before. Archaeological knowledge of this nuraghe necessarily involves the evaluation of these identities, good and bad.