Currently, access to the “domus de janas a capanna circolare” stands at about 9 metres, as the front part of the rock has collapsed and destroyed the original entrance (fig. 1).

Fig. 1 - Detail of the entrance to the domus de janas V by S. Andrea Priu, otherwise known as “Tomba a capanna circolare” or “Tomba a domus” (photo by Unicity S.p.A.).

The interior of the tomb is a rectangular pavilion atrium (1.75 x 0.80 metres) with a flat ceiling, followed by a circular cell (3 metres diameter, height 2.30 metres) with two smaller, irregular shaped cells (fig. 2) opening up on the opposite sides.

Fig. 2 - Map of the domus de janas (byTARAMELLI 1919, fig. 44, page 102).

This architectural diagram provides several clues useful for the reconstruction of the pre-Nuragic hut, including the rectangular atrium and a circular chamber. As there is little documentation of the pre-Nuragic culture dwelling places, only the architectural elements found in the domus, as they are a copy of real elements, allow us to form reconstruction theories regarding the houses of the living (fig. 3).

The reproduced circular room is, in fact, one similar to current pinnettas, characterised by a based with a stone wall, or vertical trunks, on which beam lie that support the conical ceiling, made from poles and branches.

These structural characteristics are represented in Sant’Andrea Priu by grooves engraved in ray from that start from the base of the ceiling from a relief work semi-circle. The accentuated curve of the conical roof reproduces the weight of the roof material on the support beams.
The atrium and circular chamber floor contain various dug out holes, circular hollows in the rock, three and fifteen in number, used for the ritual libations in honour of the deceased.

There are also two niches in the main cell, used for offers made during the funeral ceremonies, one near the or in the left wall and another on the rear wall.

Some of the hollows in the floor of the main cell have been cut from a rectangular floor tomb dug in the trachyte floor and placed transversely to the entrance axis, and datable to the High Middle Ages (sizes: 1.90x0.60 m, depth 0.70 m).

This tomb, with its lack of findings from the dig, is the same layout as the Tomba del Capo and the Tomba a Camera, i.e. created in the pre-Nuragic age, around 4th millennium - 3rd millennium B.C.

Fig. 3 - Cross section of the hypogeum (by TARAMELLI 1919, fig. 45, page 103).