The Nuragic civilization.

Giacomo Pozza

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The Nuragic civilization developed in Sardinia from 1800 to 500 BC. It's the oldest civilization of the western mediterranean area.

The Nuragics built more than 7000 Nuraghi, towers and fortresses that were all built between 1800 and 1100 BC. Some Nuraghi could be extremely big and made of several towers and walls, like the Nuraghe Arrubbiu, that with its 25-30 meters of height was the tallest structure in Bronze Age Europe. There are three main types of Nuraghe: 1)Complex Nuraghi, Like Arrubbiu, Barumini, Santu Antine, Losa, Seruci and many others, which are big Nuraghi made of several towers, usually the tallest tower is located in the center of the structure. 2) The Simple Tholos Nuraghe: these are the most common ones and are made of a single tower. 3)The Corridor Nuraghi, these are the least common ones, they are believed to be the oldest type of Nuraghe, they are often reffered to as proto-nuraghi, they have a rectangular shape.

The Nuragics of course not only built the Nuraghi, but also many other structures, like the hundreds of Water well temples that can be found in Sardinia (built mainly between 1300 and 1000 BC), these temples were really advanced buildings for the time, a good example of this type of structures is the Holy well of Saint Cristina, which is considered by some archeologists to be an advanced astronomical observatory. The Nuragics also built hundreds of Giant tombs called "Tombe dei giganti" and many Megaron temples.


The Nuragics traded with all the mediterranean people, they were sailors as proved by the discovery of many heavy Nuragic anchors and by the fact that Bronze age Nuragic pottery is found in many regions of the Mediterranean sea (Cyprus, Crete, Spain, Sicily, Tyrins and many others).

The Nuragic civilization made the first statues in Europe: the so called Giants of Monte prama are a group of 40 giant statues (their height ranges between 2 and 2,5 meters) depicting warriors and athlets, dated between the IXth and the VIIIth century BC, even if recent discoveries suggest that they could even be a couple of centuries older.

The Nuragics are also famous for the big qauntity of small bronze sculptures that they've produced, called the bronzetti, one of the biggest collection of small bronze figures of all time. Nowadays more than 700 of these figures are known, these bronze models depict warriors (which mostly wore a typical horned helmet and used a round shield) Leaders or kings, priests, offerers, muscians, animals and even bronze models of Nuraghi. The most common type of bronzetto is the Nuragic ship model, more than 157 bronze ships were found (and many hundreds of terracotta ships too) proving the importance of the sea in the life of the Nuragics.
Some Nuragic bronzetti are found in Italy too, mostly in Etruria, in fact Etruscans often traded with the Nuragics and according to many archeologists the Etruscan aristocrats used to organize arranged weddings with the Nuragic nobility.
Recent discoveries of bronzetti in the bronze age water temple of Funtana Coberta and in a Nuragic tomb in Orroli suggest that the production of Nuragic bronzetti began around the XIIIth century BC, although it flourished during the early iron age.

The ancient inhabitans of Sardinia adopted a phoenician alphabet during the early iron age, although some recent discoveries suggest the existence of an exclusive Nuragic writing system during the bronze age.

Iteresting facts about the Nuragic civilization:

The Nuragics were the first ones to produce wine in Europe around 1600 BC.
The Nuragics were the first ones to bring melons to Europe arund 1310-1150 BC.
According to some archeologists the Nuragic Sardinians are identifiable with the Sherden mercenaries who invaded Egypt and the middle east during the late Bronze age.
The Name Sardinians or SRDN is attested since at least 900-800 BC in the Nora stone, one of the first alphabetical documents of the western mediterranean sea, although a complete reliable translation of the document doesn't exist yet.
 
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Giacomo, it is wonderful what you opened this thread. Reputation.

I wrote more times that original languages of old Europeans, carriers of haplogroup I disappeared.

But Nuragic people were I2 carriers, at least in large part. Can we accept this as a fact?

If Nuragic people were I2 carriers it means that Nuragic language can be language of I2 carriers for which there are written records!

Can we considered Nuragic language as first language of I carriers which is available? It would be amazing. I would like to see discussion about it, to hear different opinions.
 
Giacomo, it is wonderful what you opened this thread. Reputation.

I wrote more times that original languages of old Europeans, carriers of haplogroup I disappeared.

But Nuragic people were I2 carriers, at least in large part. Can we accept this as a fact?

If Nuragic people were I2 carriers it means that Nuragic language can be language of I2 carriers for which there are written records!
If you mean the I2 hunter gatherer's language, than it is very, very, very unlikely. Even though Sardinians are high in I2 their autosomal DNA is almost exclusively Neolithic Farmers. Besides, as I alluded, in other threads, there were tens if not hundreds of I2 HG languages. HG populations were very sparse and separated in small groups during ice age, and this will induce splits and drifts of original language, if there was one to start with. After thousand of years of Glacial Maximum till the end of ice age, and the languages became mutually unintelligible. The prime example how it works, are hundreds of languages in isolated tribes in Amazon jungle, or languages of North American Natives, the hunter gatherers. It is hard to imagine that HGs of Europe had only one Mesolithic language.
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If you mean the I2 hunter gatherer's language, than it is very, very, very unlikely. Even though Sardinians are high in I2 their autosomal DNA is almost exclusively Neolithic Farmers. Besides, as I alluded, in other threads, there were tens if not hundreds of I2 HG languages. HG populations were very sparse and separated in small groups during ice age, and this will induce splits and drifts of original language, if there was one to start with. After thousand of years of Glacial Maximum till the end of ice age, and the languages became mutually unintelligible. The prime example how it works, are hundreds of languages in isolated tribes in Amazon jungle, or languages of North American Natives, the hunter gatherers. It is hard to imagine that HGs of Europe had only one Mesolithic language.

Yes, LeBrok, you can notice that I used plural in second sentence.

What I want to say it would be amazing if Nuragic language is one of language of I (I2) carriers, it is only which is available.

I think that Nuragic is not IE language, I would like that someone corrects if I'm wrong.
 
Yes I think it's a pre-IndoEuropean language, but the documents are really hard to translate, the few that I know of like Teti inscribed terracotta ship and Nuraxinieddu inscribed askos contain mainly protosinaitic characters, protocananean characters and some unique Nuragic characters.
 
Yes, LeBrok, you can notice that I used plural in second sentence.

What I want to say it would be amazing if Nuragic language is one of language of I (I2) carriers, it is only which is available.

I think that Nuragic is not IE language, I would like that someone corrects if I'm wrong.
Yes, I don't think they were IEs. Not enough ANE or WHG in them to justify cultural transition to IE language, till probably the Roman era. I also doubt that they had hunter gatherer language, even though they are rich in I2. Their autosomal DNA point to overwhelmingly EEF influence and language of first farmers who came from Fertile Crescent. We can draw a parallel to colonialism times, where farmers from Europe came in contact with H-Gs of America and Australia. In all cases H-Gs adopted farmer's language and not vice versa.

It is not related here, but interesting nevertheless, that it is possible that HGs of the Steppe took their IE language from some farmers from South side of Caucasian Mountains, who taught them farming, or maybe from Cucuteni? In this case IE might be related to language of first farmers. Sort of lingua franka which united all the HGs of the Steppe? Otherwise it is almost impossible that R1b and R1a of the Steppe and "Russian" forest, which gave genetic base to IEs, separated by thousand kilometers and thousands of years, would have spoken same language. I think we can imagine that there needed to be a common cultural denominator, which gave them same language. Why not the farmers who came from South Caucasus or Cucuteni?
 
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Giacomo, it is wonderful what you opened this thread. Reputation.

I wrote more times that original languages of old Europeans, carriers of haplogroup I disappeared.

But Nuragic people were I2 carriers, at least in large part. Can we accept this as a fact?

If Nuragic people were I2 carriers it means that Nuragic language can be language of I2 carriers for which there are written records!

Can we considered Nuragic language as first language of I carriers which is available? It would be amazing. I would like to see discussion about it, to hear different opinions.

All the non-IE languages from Iron age SouthWest Europe are good candidates for language families which descend from Neolithic farmers. The only one that wasn't erased by Latin is: Basque. And based on Ancient Genomes, Basque people appears to be something like 80-90% Middle Neolithic farmer-descended, and even 60-70% SouthWest European Middle Neolithic.
 
Thanks for posting this Giacomo Pozza this is very interesting.
 
could the Nuragic people be related to the people that built La Bastida 2000 BC and founded El Argar culture in souther Spain?

From what I know yes, they shared many characteristics (buildings, weapons, etc...).

The Nuragics are also related to the Talaiot people in the Balearic islands for many reasons:

The Talaiot people had the same type of pottery as the Nuragics
They has really similar types of buildings
One of the main Nuragic ethnicities was known as the "Balars"
The original name of one of the Balearic islands was Nurax/Nurash, a typical Nuragic toponym.
 

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