- F. Lo Schiavo and M. Milletti –
Mediterranean sea routes, and experienced traders, with contacts in both the Near East
and the Far West. In the very end of the Bronze Age and in the Early Iron Age, their life
and destiny changed, stressing differences that could have been distinguished also in the
previous period.
Northern Sardinians strengthened their relationship with the Tyrrhenian area,
gravitating more and more towards the opposite shore and introducing ancient Sardinian
customs to the local cultures of peninsular Italy. With this clear increase in contact
between Sardinia and the mainland, the Tyrrhenian Sea became a stage for joint naval
ventures. Trade and piracy were linked in written sources, evidenced by the interconnected
genealogies, mythologies and common designations (“Trsha,” “Thyrsenoi”?). Piracy and
trade dominated the Tyrrhenian Sea until stronger land-based powers took the fore on
both sides, and fought over the sea.
The Nuragic people living in the inland central Nuoro region (“Barbaroi,” today
“Barbaricini”), knew and participated in cultural developments throughout Sardinian
prehistory and protohistory, such as changes in artefact form and rituals, and even
acted as cultural intermediaries. Sanctuaries continued to be used for centuries, from
the FBA 3/EIA 1 up to the Middle Ages, showing local reverence for early symbols
and traditions (Sa Sedda’e Carros-Oliena, Nurdole-Orani, Sa Carcaredda-Villagrande
Strisàili, S. Vittoria-Serri, etc.) This is confi rmed by the letters of the pope Gregorius
Magnus to the “Judge” (“Giudice”) Ospito, in which he complains about the persistent
adherence to the ancient cults.
At the end of the Bronze Age, the Nuragic peoples living in the south-west
center of the island (“Srdn,” “Shardana”?), having opened land and markets to the
Levantines and later on Phoenicians, shifted materially and ideologically towards the
newcomers settled on the coast. Later on, the foundation of the new cities: Bosa,
Tharros, Othoca, Sulki, Bithia and Karalis brought a new way of life, with new ideology
and rituals, developing to the adoption of Near-Eastern and Phoenician religion and
deities. Past rituals were transformed, from the monumental collective Tomba dei
Giganti (“Giant’s tomb”) and its later developments to individual pit and cist burials,
often grouped in necropoleis, at fi rst rarely and later more and more often enriched
with personal grave goods. Pottery production for ritual purposes often imitates old
Nuragic shapes, such as the elbow-handled jars, the askoid jugs, the carinated bowls,
produced now in the new technique of wheel-thrown clay and sometimes covered with
a new red lustrous paint, apparently infl uenced by the early Phoenician’s pottery style.
Traditional bronze weapons and ornaments, such as daggers and detachable-head
bronze pins are now partially or entirely made in iron. The production of amulets,
symbolically reproducing in miniature the Nuragic panoply (the so-called “little
quivers,” “faretrine” in Italian), long-handled traditional fl anged axes, well-known
pottery shapes such as “pilgrim’s fl asks” (the so-called “pendulum” pendants), and so
on, increase.
In the Early Iron Age the Phoenicians followed the Mediterranean routes, where in
the MBA 3/RBA Cypriot copper oxhide ingots circulated and, beyond, reached the far
western regions of the Iberian peninsula, to the Atlantic coast. The Algherese area in the
north-western region, among the most densely populated of Nuragic Sardinia, and with a
multitude of bronze fi nds in the temples (Camposanto-Olmedo: Fig. 11.2) and the hoards
(Flumenelongu-Alghero: Fig. 11.3; S. Imbenia 3-Alghero), shows evidence of this cultural
integration. The focus shifted from the Nuragic villages such as Palmavera-Alghero