Barumini Trip Overview
Entrance ticket to Su Nuraxi Archeolgical Zone where you can find the biggest nuragic complex in Sardinia, Casa Zapata Museum and the centre of scientist Giovanni Liliu.
All locations are within the town of Barumini but we advise moving between them in car or transfer,
Please note that the Archeological Zone Su Nuraxi can be visited only with the guide and the guided visits for small groups depart every half an hour from 9:00. at the nuraghe.
Additional Info
Duration: 1 to 3 hours
Starts: Barumini, Italy
Trip Category: Sightseeing Tickets & Passes >> Attraction Tickets
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What to Expect When Visiting Barumini, Province of Medio Campidano, Italy
Entrance ticket to Su Nuraxi Archeolgical Zone where you can find the biggest nuragic complex in Sardinia, Casa Zapata Museum and the centre of scientist Giovanni Liliu.
All locations are within the town of Barumini but we advise moving between them in car or transfer,
Please note that the Archeological Zone Su Nuraxi can be visited only with the guide and the guided visits for small groups depart every half an hour from 9:00. at the nuraghe.
Visit: Viale Su Nuraxi, 09021 Barumini, Sardinia Italy
The archaeological zone of “Su Nuraxi”was discovered and brought to light by the archaeologist Giovanni Lilliu during the Forties and Fifties and because of its uniqueness has been enrolled in Unesco World Heritage List in 1997.
The Nuragic civilization developed in Sardinia during a period of about 1000 years (1500-500 BC) giving rise to a very complex social structure, characterized by communities divided into different social classes to which families or clans belonged.
It is named after the most characteristic monument of that period: “the Nuraghe a word that means “pile of stones” and “cavity”, which goes to indicate a type of military architecture with turreted walls. So far, across the island more than 7000 nuraghes (single towers and complex nuraghes) were surveyed and in the territory of Barumini about thirty of them appear. Su Nuraxi is the most representative of complex nuraghes, i.e. consisting of more than one tower. Their building in Sardinia is primarily done between the Middle Bronze and the Recent Bronze Age with a strictly military function; even if they are older of about 3000 years, in fact, they were very similar to medieval castles and were used to defend the surrounding lands. Subsequently they were adapted and reused up to the Iron Age and sometimes they were also used by people who took the place of Nuragic ones.
Su Nuraxi presents a cultural stratification of more than 2000 years, i.e. from 1500 BC to the 7th century AD. As regards the realization of Su Nuraxi it is now possible distinguish different stages of development, thanks to the identification of the building sequences and to the evidence provided by the material culture. The main building material is basalt, a volcanic hard rock that in this territory can be only found on the slopes of the Giara plateau.
In the Middle Bronze Age (1500-1300 BC) the main tower (the keep) was built, i.e. the simple nuraghe with tholos. “Tholos” is the term used to denote a truncated cone tower made up of circular rooms with jutting out walls, i.e. consisted of large stone blocks decreasing in size as they tapered toward the top, and completed by a false dome-shaped roof. The central tower or keep (originally 18,60 metres high) was made up of three rooms placed one upon the other communicating among them through some staircases obtained inside the thickness of the wall.
Then, during the Recent Bronze Age (1300-1100 B.C.) four towers, originally 14 metres high, joined by curtain walls and oriented toward the four cardinal points were added to the original single tower forming a quadrilobate bastion. The main entrance of the fortalice, situated in the South-Eastern curtain wall, leaded into a half-moon shaped courtyard, which allowed to connect rooms of several towers and was equipped with a well. All four towers consisted of two rooms, which had also a circular base and a false dome-shaped roof, placed one upon the other and completely independent between them. Rooms at the ground floor were provided with embrasures, arranged into two rows and separated by a half-height wooden platform.
During this same period the oldest clump of huts of the village arose (of which few traces now remain) and 3 towers, being part of an encircling outer wall prepared for the external defence of the quadrilobate rampart, were built.
During the Late Bronze Age (1100-IX century BC) the towered defence wall was renovated and enlarged by the addition of other towers, while the quadrilobate bastion was covered by a masonry sheath, about 3 metres in thickness, which blocked the original entrance at the ground. This last one was so replaced by a new rectangular raised entrance obtained within the mass of the reinforced North-Eastern curtain wall. This massive masonry reinforcing sheath also occluded the embrasures of the rooms at the ground floor into the towers being part of the quadrilobate.
During the Late Bronze Age, most of the houses of the village were also built; they had a circular base and consisted of one only room covered by a wooden conical roofing.
One of the most important structures being part of the Nuragic complex, built during that time, is the “Hut 80″ also called “Hut of Reunion”, “Council Hall” or “Curia”. It is a large circular building provided with a circular stone bench arranged around the inner perimeter and five niches on the wall, where archaeologists have found several elements probably used during some religious rituals wich suggest us that inside it some very important public events must have taken place.
At the beginning of the last period of the Nuragic Age, called Iron Age (IX-VI century BC), Su Nuraxi was completely destroyed and on the remains, next to both the external defence wall and the nuraghe, a new clump of huts was built as from the early decades of the VII century BC, which develops fine techniques and urban forms belonged to a society who was renovating and growing both internally and for external contacts and stimuli. At this time, the climate becomes more peaceful and stable and the military life is now a memory of the past.
During this period new dwelling typologies were built the insulae with a central court. These huts have a circular shape and rooms, mostly quadrangular and probably covered by a wooden roof, are put in a radial and centripetal arrangement all around a circular paved open-sky courtyard. The most significant room is the so called “rotonda”, an elegant small room which in the original time could have had a false domed roof; this room is provided with a paved floor, a circular stone bench and a basin in the middle used to contain some water, as it was probably used to practice some lustral rituals connected with the cult of waters. These huts are now brought to light in a small number of nuraghes and those ones of Barumini reach the higher degree of complexity and change.
In the V century BC the Nuragic Civilization took its place to the Punic occupation and the locals came into contact with a different culture. Apart from some progressive material input from the Punic cities, the physical appearance of the village and the lifestyle of its inhabitants didn’t suffer a big change; however, they had no development, rather a gradual decline of housing and population was the result.
During the historical period, II-I century BC, the settlement was reused and adapted by the Romans, who in some cases used some environments as burial places. The structure continued to be inhabited until the III century BC and later it was sporadically attended until the Early Middle Age, VII century BC.
Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes
Visit: Casa Zapata Museum, Piazza Giovanni XXIII, 09021 Barumini, Sardinia Italy
Casa Zapata is a beautiful complex residence, whose realization was ordered by the Zapata noble family as from the end of the XVI century. Family’s members arrived in Sardinia in 1323 together with the infant Alfonso to conquer it and in 1541 they bought the Barony of Las Plassas, Barumini and Villanovafranca, becoming landlords and then barons of these lands until the abolition of the feudalism. Today the Spanish residence is the seat of the so-called “Casa Zapata” Museum organized into three sections.
The Archaeological Section has been mounted into the oldest part of the residence, a beautiful palace realized according to the classical model imposed by Philip II and imitating the shape and style of Zapata family’s palace in Cagliari. It deals with a very beautiful seventeenth century building which, during the last century, was identified as ideal for care and enhancement of the very important finds found in the archaeological zone of Su Nuraxi. To this end, after the death of the last baroness, Donna Concetta Ingarao Zapata, occurred in the Eighties and a bad period of total neglect , the Municipality of Barumini bought its property in 1987. Approximately 3 years later, in 1990, unaware of the treasure that “Casa Zapata” kept inside, they started the restoration works towards the implementation of the plan for a museum. But these works were soon stopped due to the discovery of an impressive complex nuraghe under the palace. As from that moment many campaigns of excavations (which are still in progress) have followed and the museum project was carried out in order to safeguard and not distort the structure of the palace and, at the same time, to make possible the vision from above of the complex nuraghe through a system of footbridges and some glass floors.
The Historical Section has been mounted into one of buildings being part the most recent part of the residence and used as warehouses or stables. Inside it you can see some of the most important documents belonging to Zapata Family and the community of Barumini. In the showcases you will have the chance to admire some original papers, considered disappeared until now, but recently found by the Municipality of Barumini. Moreover in the panels and in the computers next to the room you can see some other important papers being part of Andrea Lorenzo Ingarao Zapata di Las Plassas’s private collection, who is the grand-nephew of the last baron’s wife, Donna Concetta Ingarao Zapata. He is living in Rome and he had given us all these papers only in digital format.
And finally the Ethnographic section, also mounted into one of buildings being part the most recent part of the residence, consisting of a small room showing some of the most common tools used during the last century by the inhabitants of Barumini and the neighboring villages; and the Regional Museum of Launeddas, a small space dedicated to the oldest Sardinian musical instrument, mounted with the assistance of the master Luigi Lai.
Duration: 1 hour
Visit: Centre of Cultural Heritage Communication and Promotion of “Giovanni Lilliu”, Viale Su Nuraxi, 09021 Barumini, Sardinia Italy
An important and highly significant work, which could only be dedicated to Giovanni Lilliu, favorite son of this land, one of fathers of contemporary Sardinia. And that is how the community wishes to demonstrate to the student, the man, the fellow countryman, all of the gratitude and the thankfulness for what he has done for the growth and development of this land.
The center is the home of several interesting and permanent exhibitions:
Photographic exhibition of excavations in Su Nuraxi, dedicated to the authors of the discovery, and telling the epic undertaking through 12 panels on which are printed the most beautiful photographs taken by the archaeologist Giovanni Lilliu during excavations conducted by him in the ‘40 and ‘50;
Photographic exhibition of Su Nuraxi, 12 gigantic pictures of the archaeological zone which constitute a solo show of the photographer Gianni Alvito, a specialist in aerial photography, deserved tribute to the great nuraghe;
Ideal reconstruction of Su Nuraxi, as it used to be in the XIV century BC when the quadrilobate bastion was built. The model in 1:10 scale has been realized by Francesco Argiolu;
“Artigianarte”, artistic craftsmanship exhibition of Sardinia realized with the participation of goldsmiths, potters, tailors, cutlers, workers of wood, leather, iron, cork;
Photographic exhibition “Points of View”, consisting of images coupled on the topic Sardinia-Iran taken by the photographer Ivo Pirisi;
As well as varied and interesting temporary exhibitions concerning archaeological, historical, artistic, natural and demoethnoanthropological topics.
Duration: 30 minutes