The term "mound" should be understood as a monumental construction of a funerary structure consisting in a roughly circular artificial mound formed by accumulating sedimentary materials (stones, gravel, soil), to which a stone perimeter may also be added.

The mound generally used to fill a tomb structure (chamber tomb, pit grave or graves, lithic tomb cista, dolmens) so that it was both hidden and highlighted at the same time: in fact the mound had the purpose of giving monumentality and visibility to the tomb itself.

In Gallura the mound, perhaps because of the greater propensity of the region to adopt the megalithic model, is a recurring element of funeral architecture which can be attributed to the European circuit of Western megaliths.

In the territory of Arzachena we find it once again, for example, in the circular tombs of Li Muri (fig. 1) and of La Macciunitta (fig. 2), in the widespread custom of sealing, with an accumulation of rubble, burials in Tafoni and ravines typical of granite, in megalithic tombs, from the allées couvertes to the graves of giants of Moru (fig. 3), Coddu Vecchju and Li Lolghi.

Fig. 1 - Rendering of the funerary circles (photo by Unicity S.p.A.).

Fig. 2 - Cista tomb with circular mound in La Macciunitta in Arzachena (from ANTONA, LO SCHIAVO, PERRA 2011, fig. 2, p. 243).

Fig. 3 - The giants’ tomb of Moru (from ANTONA, LO SCHIAVO, PERRA 2011, fig. 4, p. 246).