- Rubens D’Oriano and Antonio Sanciu –
SARDINIA BEFORE THE PHOENICIANSHowever, one cannot fully understand the reasons and dynamics of the relationship
between the Phoenicians and the Etruscans of Sardinia without at least a brief description
of the context of Mediterranean relations from which these relationships are derived, thus
extending the boundaries of the chronological and geographical scene and presenting the
appearance of additional representative actors, including especially the indigenous people
of Sardinia.
Between the sixteenth and eleventh centuries bc the Nuragic civilization grows in
the island and reaches its apogee, occupying the territory with at least 8,000 capillary
nuraghi (megalithic towers from which the culture takes its name), including very large
villages, often imposing shrines, large collective tombs, etc. in a sort of competition
between communities which resulted in many cases in the erection of monuments that
are unrivalled for grandeur in the contemporary western Euro-Mediterranean world
(nuraghi with four or fi ve towers and even up to 18 towers, some originally as high as 20
meters, Fig. 12.2) nor for refi nement (sacred wells and sanctuaries in stone masonry cut
with geometric precision). The development of metallurgy was extremely important,
thanks to the signifi cant local mineral resources and trade with other Mediterranean
populations.
Towards the middle of the fourteenth century bc Nuragic Sardinia was itself the scene
of an epochal cultural and historical change: the discovery of the island by the Mycenaean
Greeks (Fig. 12.3) and thereafter the opening of the western half of the Mediterranean
from Sicily to Iberia (known probably via Sardinia), with its lively world of various
indigenous peoples already in contact with each other for the exchange of important
resources, especially metals, which were the prime interest for the Mycenaeans. These
were the fi rst to acquire – and therefore to spread to both East and West – the notion
of the complete development of the Mediterranean from its banks further east to the
Atlantic. The Mycenaeans then put into communication, for the fi rst time by direct
and continuous communications, the two halves of the ancient world, while up until
that time, exchanges had taken place only in brief sessions, and generally only between
adjacent areas. From now on the relations between the peoples of the West will intensify,
and begin the long process of direct communication between them and the shores of the
Aegean as shown, for Sardinia, by Nuragic artifacts found in Crete and Cyprus.
Figure 12.2 The nuraghe Santu Antine of Torralba.