In reconstructing the populations in the Bonorva countryside in the Historic Age the ruins of the Roman necropolis found on the Santa Lucia plain become very important, showing frequentation of a fertile area rich in water resources and particularly favourable for human settlement, where rural settlements (perhaps villae) and thermal spa plants were present.

In 1881, some tombs of various types were destroyed near the church of Santa Lucia, that were part of a cemetery area that spread southeast to Sant’Andrea Priu, where some prehistoric domus de janas were reused to lay the decesased to rest.

In Su Terranzu (fig. 1), there was a necropolis made up of trench tombs.

Fig. 1 - The Su Terranzu site, Bonorva (from Sardegnageoportale; reprocessing by M.G. Arru).

The funeral area has simple trenches of various shapes and sizes (circular, square, rectangular) dug artificially into the rock, where the urn containing the deceased person’s ashes was placed together with the pottery items (jugs, plates, jars). These are poor graves, affordable for everyone, the reason why they were most common (figs. 2-3).

Fig. 2 - Su Terranzu necropolis (photo by Bonorva Archaeological Museum).

Fig. 3 - Su Terranzu necropolis (photo by Bonorva Archaeological Museum).

Outside the tomb, on the land, there was an engraved funeral stela, a sign used to indicate the exact position of the grave, otherwise invisible. At Su Terranzu two from the Punic-Roman Age were recovered. The first carries the picture of a human heavily influenced by Punic iconographic tradition (fig. 4); the second is partly preserved and is of a similar image (fig. 5).

Fig. 4 - Stelae from the Su Terranzu necropolis. Bonorva Archaeological Museum (photo by M.G. Arru).

Fig. 5 - Stelae from the Su Terranzu necropolis. Bonorva Archaeological Museum (photo by M.G. Arru).