North-eastern Necropolis (Parking area)
In the parking area of the current site, connected with the custody, guides and optimisation of the Monte Sirai archaeological site there is a further area of the necropolis. There are different types of tombs, that follow the Carthaginian era, between the end of the 6th and the 4th century B.C. and the chambers tombs in the hypogeum necropolis.
Rituals connected in various ways to cremation can be seen. There are tufa rock benches with collective ustrinum (fig. 3), i.e. A specific place where the corpses were cremated before being placed in the pit tombs.
There may have been other classes and populations, parallel with the Carthaginian groups in the chamber tombs dug into the rock, together with local elements still linked to earlier Phoenician traditions.
The site may also have had ancient temples close by: documents of Eneolithic Sardinian culture of Monte Claro have been found (that would in this case prove a particular inclination to be placed on high ground).
Bibliografia
- M. GUIRGUIS, Gli spazi della morte a Monte Sirai (Carbonia - Sardegna). Rituali e ideologie funerarie nella necropoli fenicia e punica (scavi 2005-2010), in FastiOnlineDocumenti&Research, http://www.fastionline.org/docs/FOLDER-it-2011-230.pdf, pp. 1-33.
- M. GUIRGUIS, Monte Sirai 2005-2010. Bilanci e prospettive, in Vicino & Medio Oriente, 16, pp. 51-82.