Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/114

 96 A History of Art in Sardinia and Judaea. Sardinia by a narrow neck of land. The centre was occupied by a volcanic plateau, where in former days four score and five towers, now ruinous, reared their truncated heads ; other five, about the water-edge of one of these pools, completed the line of defence. This was their first entrenched camp, whence they set out to seek further afield new lands to till or to pasture their herds, gradually spreading over Campidano and Sulcis, whilst new towers marked their onward progress. The niiragh scheme describes an open arch which frames in the lofty summits of the central tableland to the north, almost following the direction of the Tirso in its first course ; extending north and south of it along the lower ridge of the plateaux to the isolated Giarra, which giant-like rises in the centre of the valley as though shot up by a violent convulsion of nature, supporting here and there its mighty limbs against the elevated plateau of Bar- bagia (Fig. 31), where nuraghs, like veritable outposts, are dis- tributed along its precipitous shelving. The Laconi group stands as a connecting link between the Giarra and the nuraghs, about midway up the Sarcidano ; the Isili towers completing the line on to the Flumendosa, which closes the arch. The numberless towers to the north-west, now ruinous, may have been due to the same people, who effected a landing at Algherro ; whilst a second band entering Sardinia by the Gulf of Palmas built the Sulcis nuraghs. Finally the Teti towers disseminated along the Toloro stream, occupy the head of a valley intersected by the Gennargentu. This forms the most striking departure from the general grouping of these monuments ; the principle of which is only to be under- stood, as in my case, by thorough inspection of the ground where they occur. 1 It is supposed that the niiragh builders, in their onward march, drove before them the savage tribes in possession of the soil. These being few in number, and badly equipped, were unable to withstand the invading hordes ; they withdrew therefore to the fastnesses, whence they sallied forth now and again to lay waste the country, plundering the nuragh people, whose advanced post was the " city of the watch," in the Toloro gorge. To the rear of this unsuspected fortress, beyond the Tirso, from the summit of the plateaux could be descried the lofty peak of the Gennargentu, 1 Baux and Gouin, Essai sur les Nûraghes, etc., pp. 191, 192.