The nuraghe civilisation lasted almost a thousand years (1800-1000 BC) and took its name from the nuraghe, a tower-shaped structure that it still characteristic and emblematic of the island today. It began in the early Bronze age and ended with the appearance of Iron Age civilisation. Around B.C. 1800, at the down of the Bronze age, there misteriously flourished a new civilisation know as the Nuragic.

 

Barumini's nuraghe - "SU NURAXI" 

    Judging by the migthy stone towers called nuraghe  scattered all over Sardinia and the refined  worksmanship of their  bronze  statuettes  cast by means of the cire perdue (lost wax) technique, they must have attained a high organisational and artistic leve.
Whit it great architecture the nuraghe is one of the most extraordinari phenomena of the ancient Mediterranean world. The civilisation that producer it, drawing inspiration and mood from the previous culture of the Copper Age, when through various stage of development and grew originality both in its own right and as a result of the various relationship with many peoples and  culture in the Europe and the Mediterranean (among these the Myceneans). 

LOSA nuraghe
At every step of that long  way it lived free and independent, indeed one might say that  the period of the nuraghi was the only true moment of political self government in the national  history of Sardinia.The constellation of over seven thousand nuraghi (buildings for military and civil use ) represents the maximum socio-economic effort and the most rational result of territorial organisation achieved  by the local mind in long centuries of planning activity. 
Residential settlements were founded and organised in the vicinity of nearly all the nuraghi, where they occupants formed a community. In the case of the simple tower structure, it was the central point administering  agricultural and pastoral assets, as well as the mining resources in metalliferous areas.

Some historians maintain that the arrival of Phoenician sailors induced the people of the nuraghi to transform their single towers perched on hills and high ground into castle fortresses, as at Barumini's

 

  Su Nuraxi, the Santu Antine complex and Genna Maria  village at Villanovaforru. The main tower  was surronded by others linked  by Ciclopean walls.
 

Nuragic complex with village "PALMAVERA"

 Huddled outside were villages  composed of as many as two hundred stone huts. The Nuragic society resembled that of the Achaeans described by Homer. Small states were ruled by a shepherd king and a councilof elders. He wielded  political, religious  and military power over nobles, priests and common folk. Slaves, probably prisoners of war, may well have been used to build the nuraghi. How this was done is unknown. In articulated structures comprising several towers (in castle formation), connected to from a system, the nuraghe acted as a stronghold  that defended the joint and superior  interest of political-administrative  cantos (or district),
governed by tribal leaders or monarchs. Outstanding  for the complexity of structure  and grandiosity of form, their maze of rooms with domed roofs, sometimes  connected by spectacular  corridors, are the nuraghi  of Su Nuraxi (Barumini), Santu Antine (Torralba), Losa (Abbasanta), Nolza (Meana).  

Barumini's nuraghe - "SU NURAXI"