Detailed sheets

Storage rooms in insula 2

The contents of the three storerooms, in addition to the half ton of metals, were stored over a long period of time, and represent the extent of the smelting activity aimed at producing votive items for pilgrims that came to the sanctuary, and the existence of workshops that produced work tools and weapons.

The first storage room revealed bronze figures and iron tools; a bull, a ram, a protome of a ship with a bull’s head, a jug, brooches, screwed up foils, a double axe, a small pick-axe, a saw, a lance and daggers (fig. 1).

 

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Fig. 1 - Storage room1 (from FADDA 2012, fig. 72 p. 56).

 

The second storage room, discovered below the slabs of a rough flooring inside a pithos (large container for foodstuffs) stored items in bronze, iron and lead, dated from 12th-11th to the 6th century B.C., for a total of more than 400 kg of metal: saws, chisels, wedges, hammers, fragments of an anvil, axes, pick-axes, scythes, iron lances, decorated jug handles, bowls, bronze weapons, bronze buckles, bracelets, bangles, rings, earrings, buttons, votive quivers (fig. 2), necklaces in bronze and amber, silver rings, a pendent that depicts a miniature axe, tripod rings, a faiance scarab, a bronze pendent of the goddess Tanit, together with 186 kg of copper ingots and lumps.

 

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Fig. 2 - The buckles in storeroom 2 (from FADDA 2012, figs. 82-83, p. 64).

 

The third storeroom, hidden under a pile of schist and granite slabs, contained two bronze bowls blackened by fire, a bronze wine urn (oinochoe) and a bronze jug. Under the jugs, there was a bronze ship with an oxen protome used as an oil lamp (fig. 3) The storeroom contained a hammer, a chisel, an awl, portions of a hull from another ship, fragments from lances, and a small double axe. There was also an iron tripod, together with other bronze items.

 

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Fig. 3 - Bronze ship with oxen protome (from FADDA 2012, fig.98, p. 77).

 

Bibliografia

  • FADDA M.A., Antichi sardi purificati. Atto secondo, in Archeologia Viva, Firenze gennaio 2011.
  • FADDA M.A., Villagrande Strisaili, villaggio santuario S'Arcu 'e Is Forros, in L'Ogliastra, archeologia, Cagliari 2011, pp. 37-45.
  • FADDA M.A., Il villaggio santuario di S'Arcu 'e Is Forros, Sardegna archeologica. Guide e itinerari , 48, Sassari 2012.
  • FADDA M.A., S’Arcu’e Is Forros: Nuragici, Filistei e Fenici fra i monti della Sardegna, in Archeologia Viva, 155, XXXI, Firenze 2012, pp. 46-57.
  • FADDA M.A., Villagrande Strisaili. Il santuario nuragico di S'Arcu 'e Is Forros e le insulae degli artigiani fusori, in Nel segno dell’acqua. Santuari e bronzi votivi della Sardegna nuragica, Sassari 2014, pp. 199-227.
  • MINOJA M., SALIS G., Un contributo al catalogo delle fibule rinvenute in Sardegna. Alcune considerazioni, in Quaderni, 26/2015, pp. 151-164.

 

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