Nuraghe Mannu, in the territory of Dorgali, stands on a limestone plateau 200 metres high, on the edge of cala Fuili, in the Gulf of Orosei and is at the centre of a small village inhabited from 1200 B.C. to the fourth-sixth century A.D. It is likely that the name of the monument ("mannu", which means big in Sardinian dialect) was due to the extension of the town, rather than to its Nuraghe which is quite small. Investigated on several occasions between 1927 and 2006, the importance of the site has been linked to the trade and coastal shipping routes along the east coast of Sardinia (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 - Nuraghe Mannu (from TARAMELLI 1933, fig. 11, p. 450).

The archaeological site includes a simple Nuraghe surrounded by a Nuraghic and Roman settlement, to which the terracing work carried out during the Nuraghic Age to level the area where the village was built should be linked (fig. 2).

Fig. 2 - Nuraghe Mannu-Dorgali (from DELUSSU 2009, fig. 1, p. 1).

The Nuraghe (fig. 3) is of the simple tholos type, built with large polygonal blocks of local stone (residual height 4.70- 3.50 m, over 13-8 rows; diameter 12.80 m at the base, 11.20 m at the top). Through a jack arched trapezoidal corridor with a small exhaust window, fitted with a passage staircase, now blocked, of which there are still twelve steps left, it is possible to enter the sub-elliptical chamber, with two overhead recessed niches in the walls. The excavation of the Nuraghe unearthed Nuraghic pottery ranging from the Middle Bronze Age to the Iron Age (XV-IX centuries B.C.). Around the area of the Nuraghe, there are the circular huts of the Nuraghic village, built with polygonal medium size stones.

Fig. 3 - Nuraghe Mannu-Dorgali (from http://www.sardegnadigitallibrary.it/mmt/1920/412295.jpg).

Of the Roman settlement (fig. 4), dating from the Republican Age and the late Imperial Age (II century B.C. - VI century A.D.), there are still two-room homes built with isodomic walls, often reused, and with semi-worked stones, dry-walled, covered with tile roofs and supported by single or double pitched wooden beams.

Fig. 4 - Roman buildings, area 3000 of Nuraghe Mannu (from DELUSSU 2009, fig. 4, p. 3).

Daily life during Roman times is documented by abundant ceramic fragments, metal artefacts, coins and faunal remains. The site moreover documents a further historic phase: Byzantine and early Medieval Age from the IV-VI century A.D.