Le Rotonde con bacile: un nuovo contributo dal villaggio nuragico di Sa Sedda 'e sos Carros-Oliena

The excavation was undertaken as part of a research project involving a vast settlement covering circa four hectares, situated in the Lanaitho valley, on the terminal part of the calcareous formations of the Supramonte di Oliena. The first excavation took place in 1977 and revealed a complex of circular rooms opening onto a paved courtyard, crossed by a channel for rainwater collection. In the 1990s, the exploration of other rooms in the insula led to the discovery of the most important space in the complex. This was constituted by a circular room (diameter 2.50 m), whose walls were built entirely in Greek-style opus quadratum, with blocks of blistered basalt and a course of limestone blocks on which seven protomi were sculpted in high-relief. The protomi functioned as spouts for a small annular channel cut into the internal thickness of the blocks. In its final phase of use, the room was used for storing fragmentary bronzes, which were probably awaiting transfer to a casting/melting workshop for recycling.Between 2001 and 2007, the archaeological investigations completely exposed the hut units making up the insula and defined several architectural and structural features characterising the complex. These included the imposing perimeter wall in cyclopean masonry separating theinsulafrom the rest of the settlement, which also functioned as containment for an earthwork abutting the steeply sloping rock. In 2011, the excavation was extended outside the perimeter wall in order to clarify certain points regarding the functional interpretation of the complex and its dating. The successive construction stratigraphy resulting from the evolution of the spatial organisation, and changes in the residential and cult requirements, which gradually saw the addition of new rooms, passageways and courtyards, was examined. An analysis of the material culture is fundamental to this research as it provides indicators of the transformations which occurred, the importance of which it is still difficult to assess, but which certainly had significant repercussions on the forms of economic and political organisation within the community. These dynamics were probably heavily influenced by contacts with the Tyrrhenian cultures, in particular the Villanovan, as attested in the material assemblage which hints at commercial and cultural exchanges, as yet to be clarified. A picture emerges of a nuragic or late nuragic world traversed by processes and changes preparing the island for the decline of the spiritual nuragic world.