- Fulvia Lo Schiavo –
Figure 10.9 The biggest (38 cm) Nuragic bronze fi gurine of a warrior in Pigorini Museum, Rome.settled in Sardinia, during the winter season, bringing with them their pure copper
oxhide ingots, of whose quality they would have been sure, their technical prowess and
such items as could serve as “models” both for the use and for the “signifi cance” of the
objects. The material presence at least of some Cypriot bronzeworkers in RBA Sardinia,
even as itinerant seasonal coppersmiths as is documented by what was found on board the
Cape Gelidonya ship, joined to parallel material presence of Nuragic sailors (traders) in
LCII/LCIII Cyprus, as now seems to have been the case shown by the discovery of Nuragic
pottery in Pyla-Kokkinokremos, could have been the base of the strong and long lasting
Cypriot “imprinting” on Nuragic bronze production, in spite of the social structure and
cultural differences between the two islands.
The Nuragic bronze items are mainly collected in hoards, deposited in temples and in
sanctuaries, in such a quantity as to demonstrate the economic and political centralising
“federal” power exerted by the Nuragic “Head-of-the-Tribe” conventions, till the end of
the LBA.
THE LEGEND OF THE FOUNDATION OF CARTHAGEMarcus Junianus Justinus (second century ad), in his epitome of Historiarum Philippicarum
by Pompeius Trogus, reports the legend of Elissa, sister of the king of Tyre, fl eeing to avoid
persecution, to the bay of today Tunis, acquiring from the native people a piece of land
as large as an ox skin. For this reason the queen invented the trick of cutting the skin
into thin threads, tying them together in order to enclose a large piece of territory, on the
Byrsa promontory. To the objections raised by W. Huss to this legendary interpretation,
very much based on hellenizing etymology, a different interpretation, as a legendary
transposition of a precise cultural situation, was suggested by S. Gsell and S. Moscati.
From the archaeological point of view, the circulation of oxhide ingots in the
Mediterranean is so wide that it is diffi cult to accept the idea of the independent birth
of a legend concerning a piece of land bought thanks to an ox skin – although through a
trick – conceived as something having a great value. On the contrary, it seems plausible
to think that the people of the region where Carthage was eventually to be founded