Nuraghe Santu Antine

Santu Antine, also known as Sa domo de su re is a nuraghe in Torralba, one of the largest in Sardinia. It is located in the centre of the Cabu Abbas plain.

WWW nuraghesantuantine.it

Description

Santu Antine is constructed of huge basalt blocks. The main tower originally reached a height of and contains three tholoi chambers on top of each other. The central tower with diameter of is high. It has three floors. The top floor is now gone. Multiple long corridors built with the corbel arch technique can be observed inside of the Nuraghe, superimposed on two floors. In addition to the towers, the nuraghe featured three wells.
The main structure was built around the 19-18th century BC, and the other parts of the nuraghe date back to the 17th–15th century BC. The remains of a Nuragic village lie nearby.

Archaeological and archaeoastronomical studies

The nuraghe has also been studied several times from an archaeoastronomic point of view, and these studies have shown how its structure is oriented following the solstices. These claims were supported, among others, by the archaeologist Ercole Contu and archaeostronomists Mauro Peppino Zedda, Juan Antonio Belmonte and Michael Hoskin. In particular, Hoskin, science historian and emeritus professor at Churchill College in Cambridge, called Santu Antine "the most sophisticated dry stone monument on earth's surface".