It was hard to find our archaeological venue yesterday morning, because for some reason, Google maps was really not working properly. It was genuinely trying to pervert us, giving us wildly wrong directions. We spent nearly an hour trying to find the destination - wrong directions, lanes petering out in the middle of nowhere, dead-ends, privacy signs etc…. Very frustrating and very odd, but in the end, following good old-fashioned brown public signs (rusty or not) we found it. The access is down a concrete road which is marked in fake slabs so it’s like a rumble strip for the half-mile or so till you get to the soft brow of a hill overlooking Porto Torres and the sea to the north, and the hinterland to the south… with lovely mountains to the west. This place is now called Monte d’Accoddi and is regarded as one of the most important sites in the western Mediterranean. It pre-dates the nuraghi by far…. originating about 4000BCE, built in phases, and remains an extraordinary thing to have survived for so long. It was ‘discovered’ in this field by the farmer in 1954…. (We shouldn’t laugh because Stonehenge wasn’t ‘discovered’ till the 16th century - no-one knew about it all through the Middle Ages, strange as that may seem).
The place is aligned n/s/e/w. It must have taken various forms during its long life - a false-mountain perhaps giving even better views over this beautiful far-reaching landscape, a ziggurat, a sacrificial place (huge altar stone), a fertility machine with two menhirs - red and white, thought now to be male and female, large ramps leading to the top, and it once had a red wooden painted house or hall on the top - some kind of temple I suppose. Two omphalos stones survive, a large one with what looks like a deliberate split in it, and a smaller one. Could this be sun-and-earth, or earth-and-moon? It had once settlements clustered around it - first round houses and later rectangular ones. Who knows? It is a very very interesting place, showing how ingenious and well-organised our predecessors were. They understood so much - astronomy, geology, construction, organisation… Yet they’ve all gone, and left this huge ‘thing’ behind them.
The explanatory literature (A4 pages google-translated from Italian to ‘English’ and presented in a flimsy plastic-sleeve booklet) urged us to go to the museum in Sássari where a lot of this is explained, including a hologram model of how it was all built and various artefacts on display (including a female figurine!)….. so we finally made our way south to the city, and having had lunch (pasta), we went to the museum.
It’s a handsome building in its own garden, with fine stone steps leading up to the grand porticoed entrance…. The gate was not locked, but stiff to open. We went up … to find the place empty and echoing… It is being totally refurbished. Nothing is available to see, at all. Various amazed and kindly ladies came out to tell us in Italian they had no idea how long the work would take. Oh dear, what a shame. They directed us to another museum which turned out to be art gallery with a comprehensive collection of Sardinian art right up to the 20th century. There's a very macabre Christ (from a crucifix) now lying nonchalantly on his back inside a Sleeping Beauty glass box, which reminded me of the photos of Jacob Rees-Mogg lounging on a parliamentary bench.
We strolled round the city. It's a very pleasant place, rather laid-back, with a lovely higgledy-piggledy centro storico. Google maps led us astray again because the address which we were assured had a cannabis store was just an empty doorway. We found the duomo with its fantastic facade on which numerous men are displayed. The Virgin and her Child get a rather shallow statue further out of sight, and there are some decorative females - nude - propping up the displays. But you are in no doubt that God talks just to men round here. It all seems rather biased and pompous, despite the flamboyant stonework and grandeur, compared to the nuraghi and Monte d'Accoddi.
It’s a handsome building in its own garden, with fine stone steps leading up to the grand porticoed entrance…. The gate was not locked, but stiff to open. We went up … to find the place empty and echoing… It is being totally refurbished. Nothing is available to see, at all. Various amazed and kindly ladies came out to tell us in Italian they had no idea how long the work would take. Oh dear, what a shame. They directed us to another museum which turned out to be art gallery with a comprehensive collection of Sardinian art right up to the 20th century. There's a very macabre Christ (from a crucifix) now lying nonchalantly on his back inside a Sleeping Beauty glass box, which reminded me of the photos of Jacob Rees-Mogg lounging on a parliamentary bench.
We strolled round the city. It's a very pleasant place, rather laid-back, with a lovely higgledy-piggledy centro storico. Google maps led us astray again because the address which we were assured had a cannabis store was just an empty doorway. We found the duomo with its fantastic facade on which numerous men are displayed. The Virgin and her Child get a rather shallow statue further out of sight, and there are some decorative females - nude - propping up the displays. But you are in no doubt that God talks just to men round here. It all seems rather biased and pompous, despite the flamboyant stonework and grandeur, compared to the nuraghi and Monte d'Accoddi.
So, we sauntered back toward the coast, swam in the delightful and perfect little bay at Spaggio de Balai, and came back to our apartment to watch the boats and ships in the harbour. It really is a delightful view.
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