Nuragic civilization
The Nuragic civilization, also known as the Nuragic culture, formed in the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, Italy in the Bronze Age. According to the traditional theory put forward by Giovanni Lilliu in 1966, it developed after multiple migrations from the West of people related to the Beaker culture who conquered and disrupted the local Copper Age cultures; other scholars instead hypothesize an autochthonous origin. It lasted from the 18th century BC , up to the Iron Age or until the Roman colonization in 238 BC. Others date the culture as lasting at least until the 2nd century AD, and in some areas, namely the Barbagia, to the 6th century AD — or possibly even to the 11th century AD,
although it must be remarked that the construction of new nuraghi had already stopped by the 12th-11th century BC, during the Final Bronze Age.
It was contemporary with, among others, the Mycenaean civilization in Greece, the Apennine and Terramare cultures of the Italian Peninsula, the Thapsos culture of Sicily, and the final phase of the El Argar culture in the Iberian Peninsula.
The adjective "Nuragic" is neither an autonym nor an ethnonym. It derives from the island's most characteristic monument, the nuraghe, a tower-fortress type of construction the ancient Sardinians built in large numbers starting from about 1800 BC. Today, more than 7,000 nuraghes dot the Sardinian landscape.
No written records of this civilization have been discovered, apart from a few possible short epigraphic documents belonging to the last stages of the Nuragic civilization. The only written information there comes from classical literature of the Greeks and Romans, such as Pseudo-Aristotle and Diodorus Siculus, and may be considered more mythical than historical.
History
Pre-Nuragic Sardinia
In the Stone Age the island was first inhabited by people who had arrived there in the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages from Europe and the Mediterranean area. The most ancient settlements have been discovered both in central and northern Sardinia. Several later cultures developed on the island, such as the Ozieri culture. The economy was based on agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing, and trading with the mainland. With the diffusion of metallurgy, silver and copper objects and weapons also appeared on the island. In 2014, early Chalcolithic period Sardinia was identified as one of the earliest silver extraction centres in the world. This took place during the 4th millennium BC.Remains from this period include hundreds of menhirs and dolmens, more than 2,400 hypogeum tombs called domus de Janas, the statue menhirs, representing warriors or female figures, and the stepped pyramid of Monte d'Accoddi, near Sassari, which show some similarities with the monumental complex of Los Millares and the later talaiots in the Balearic Islands. According to some scholars, the similarity between this structure and those found in Mesopotamia is due to cultural influxes coming from the Eastern Mediterranean.
The altar of Monte d'Accoddi fell out of use starting from c. 2000 BC, when the Beaker culture, which at the time was widespread in almost all western Europe, appeared on the island. The beakers arrived in Sardinia from two different regions: firstly from Spain and southern France, and secondly from Central Europe, through the Italian Peninsula.
Nuragic era
Early Bronze Age
The Bonnanaro culture was the last evolution of the Beaker culture in Sardinia, and displayed several similarities with the contemporary Polada culture of northern Italy. These two cultures shared common features in the material culture such as undecorated pottery with axe-shaped handles. These influences may have spread to Sardinia via Corsica, where they absorbed new architectural techniques that were already widespread on the island. New peoples coming from the mainland arrived on the island at that time, bringing with them new religious philosophies, new technologies and new ways of life, making the previous ones obsolete or reinterpreting them.File:Fig. 18 Le spade Sant Iroxi in rame arsenicato.jpg|thumb|right|Swords of the Bonnanaro culture from the Hypogeum of Sant'Iroxi, Decimoputzu
The widespread diffusion of bronze brought numerous improvements. With the new alloy of copper and tin, a harder and more resistant metal was obtained, suitable for manufacturing tools used in agriculture, hunting and warfare. At a later phase of this period probably dates the construction of the so-called proto-nuraghe, a platformlike structure that marks the first phase of the Nuragic Age. These buildings are very different from the classical nuraghe having an irregular planimetry and a very stocky appearance. They are more numerous in the central-western part of Sardinia, later they spread in the whole Island.
Middle and Late Bronze Age
Dating to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, the nuraghe, which evolved from the previous proto-nuraghe, are megalithic towers with a truncated cone shape; every Nuragic tower had at least an inner tholos chamber and the biggest towers could have up to three superimposed tholos chambers. They are widespread in the whole of Sardinia, about one nuraghe every three square kilometers.Early Greek historians and geographers speculated about the mysterious nuraghe and their builders. They described the presence of fabulous edifices, called daidaleia, from the name of Daedalus, who, after building his labyrinth in Crete, would have moved to Sicily and then to Sardinia. Modern theories about their use have included social, military, religious, or astronomical roles, as furnaces, or as tombs. Although the question has long been contentious among scholars, the modern consensus is that they were built as defensible homesites, and that included barns and silos.
File:Nuraghe Is Paras 6.jpg|thumb|left|Tholos of Nuraghe Is Paras, Isili
In the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, archaeological studies have proved the increasing size of the settlements built around some of these structures, which were often located at the summit of hills. Perhaps for protection reasons, new towers were added to the original ones, connected by walls provided with slits forming a complex nuraghe.
File:Torralba San Antine 61g.JPG|thumb|Nuraghe Santu Antine, Torralba, internal corridor
Among the most famous of the numerous existing nuraghe, are the Su Nuraxi at Barumini, Santu Antine at Torralba, Nuraghe Losa at Abbasanta, Nuraghe Palmavera at Alghero, Nuraghe Genna Maria at Villanovaforru, Nuraghe Seruci at Gonnesa and Arrubiu at Orroli. The biggest nuraghe, such as Nuraghe Arrubiu, could reach a height of about 25–30 meters and could be made up of 5 main towers, protected by multiple layers of walls, for a total of dozens of additional towers. It has been suggested that some of the current Sardinian villages trace their origin directly from Nuragic ones, including perhaps those containing the root Nur-/Nor- in their name like Nurachi, Nuraminis, Nurri, Nurallao, and Noragugume.
Soon Sardinia, a land rich in mines, notably copper and lead, saw the construction of numerous furnaces for the production of alloys which were traded across the Mediterranean basin. Nuragic people became skilled metal workers; they were among the main metal producers in Europe, and produced a wide variety of bronze objects. New weapons such as swords, daggers and axes preceded drills, pins, rings, bracelets, statuettes and the votive boats that show a close relationship with the sea. Tin may have drawn Bronze Age traders from the Aegean where copper is available but tin for bronze-making is scarce. The first verifiable smelting slag has come to light, its appearance in a hoard of ancient tin confirms local smelting as well as casting.
The usually cited tin sources and trade in ancient times are those in the Iberian Peninsula or from Cornwall. Markets included civilizations living in regions with poor metal resources, such as the Mycenaean civilization, Cyprus and Crete, as well as the Iberian Peninsula, a fact that can explain the cultural similarities between them and the Nuraghe civilization and the presence in Nuragic sites of late Bronze Age Mycenaean, west and central Cretan and Cypriote ceramics, as well as locally made replicas, concentrated in half a dozen findspots that seem to have functioned as "gateway-communities".
Sea Peoples connection
The late Bronze Age saw a vast migration of the so-called Sea Peoples, described in ancient Egyptian sources. They destroyed Mycenaean and Hittite sites and also attacked Egypt. According to Giovanni Ugas, the Sherden, one of the most important tribes of the sea peoples, are to be identified with the Nuragic Sardinians. This identification has been also supported by Antonio Taramelli, Vere Gordon Childe, Sebastiano Tusa, Vassos Karageorghis, and Carlos Roberto Zorea, from the Complutense University of Madrid.Another hypothesis is that they came to the island around the 13th or 12th century after the failed invasion of Egypt; however, these theories remain controversial. Simonides of Ceos and Plutarch spoke of raids by Sardinians against the island of Crete, in the same period in which the Sea People invaded Egypt. This would at least confirm that Nuragic Sardinians frequented the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Further proofs come from 13th-century Nuragic ceramics found at Tiryns, Kommos, Kokkinokremnos, Hala Sultan Tekke, Minet el-Beida and in Sicily, at Lipari, and the Agrigento area, along the sea route linking western to eastern Mediterranean; ceramics similar to those of late Bronze Age Sardinia have also been found in the Egyptian port of Marsa Matruh.
The archaeologist Adam Zertal has proposed that the Harosheth Haggoyim of Israel, home of the biblical figure Sisera, is identifiable with the site of "El-Ahwat" and that it was a Nuragic site suggesting that he came from the people of the Sherden of Sardinia. Influences of the Nuragic architecture at El-Ahwat have been noticed also by Bar Shay, from Haifa University.