Page:Nation v71 no1832.djvu/9

 Aug. 9, 1900]

The Nation.

109

‘The typleal nuraghe, as the better-in- formed reader doubtless knows, consists usually of two vaulted chambers, one abov the other, the upper one being reached by ‘8 spiral passage, 60 narrow as to admit but one person at a time, and rarely high enough to allow one to stand erect. fe, however, by no means a universal rule. A short distance trom Templo in Gallur for instance, there stands on the property of the Azara family an extremely interest- ing specimen, which the kindness of its own- ers allowed the writer to ace under the very best conditions. It originally had two stories (the upper one now gone), but the ground floor 1s reached through a high vaulted corridor, leading by openings, right and left, to two chambers of the ordinary ‘type, while from the left-hand room a small third chamber 1s reached through a low aperture. Behind these again, and still in- cluded in the eight-foot wall of the nuraghe, Mes a fourth room, almost entirely ruined, the ingress to which is undetermined. An- ‘other noteworthy feature of this structure Hes in the fact that, ke others in Gallura, it fe bullt of the bard gray granite of the Limbara district, largely used for conatruc- ‘on purposes in the town of Tempio itself. Ita lines are consequently much less regu- Jar than usual, and the courses less hori- wontal. The bullders obviously selected Dlocks with approximately smooth cleavage, for no slgn of tooling bas been detected here, One of the larger blocks, taken almost at haphazard, proved on measurement to de five and a half feet long, four feet wide, and two and a half fest thick. Differences fn structure have been variously explained, ‘as will subsequently appear; the variety of ‘material employed (hard calcareous stone, trachytle porphyry, volcanic rock, and 90 forth) depended on the nature of available dullding stone afforded by the neighbor- hood. Thus, the celebrated “Black Nura- she,” seen from the railway carriage win- dow, near Ploaghe, between Chilivant and Sassari, ts bullt of lava, fairly abundant in the region. As regards helght and girth, Mt meed but be sald that the larger towers Measure some fifty fect from founda- ton to top of platform, with a diameter of about eighty fect at the base; scores of ‘them are on a much smaller scale. It forma no part of the purpose of the Present article to attempt the serious solu- tion of difieulties over which archmologists are still at strife; the outside dilettante is only too often disposed to rush in where the specialist treads with wary foot. Suffice it to say that authorities on “nuraghology” seo in these structures a variety of dif- forent ends. Thus, to take a few of them chronologically, Stephanint (‘De Veteribus Sardine Landibus,’ 1772) holds them to be trophies of victory; Madao (‘Sarde Anti- ehita,’ 1792) argues in favor of a sepulchrat hypothesis; La Marmora, the classical au- thority on Sardinia (1840), looks upon the nuraghi as essentially connected with re- Ugious worship; Canonico lor. Spano (1854), also an eminont, nuraghologist, dis- covered grounds for considering them to be Awellings of the primitive inhabitants of Sardinia (“case ¢ abitazion{ antiche dl fami- sile aggregate in soctetA"), while oth ‘again, have come to the conclusion (Zanat elit, 1899) that the primary intention of the nurag-bullder was strictly defensive, during ages of “Homeric struggle” In all {this controversy, not always conducted, be it

said, in the dispassionate spirit which is misguldedly supposed to mark the objective aloofness of aclence, only one writer of eminence seems to have been capable of taking the strictly logical position of the empirical school. Dr. Ettore Pais of Naples. in a most excellent monograph (‘La Sarde- na prima del Dominio Romano,’ Romé 1881), printed among the archives of the Reale Accademia det Lincel, for the firat time suggested that the purposes of the three thousand or more nuraghi in the tsl- and of Sardinia need not have been unl- formly identical. Varlety in structure might very well be brought about by diversity of Purpose; and, indeed, the same nuraghe ‘might well, in those primitive anti-special- izing times, have been designed with more than one aim in view; further, as Dr. Pals points out, it is not easy to find two that coincide in all the details of their plan. There was, continues the learned writer, ‘8 close connection between the fortress and the temple in prehistoric times, or, as one might say, entente cordiale between the gown and the sword. This unlikencss of structure, in which La Marmora saw only ‘& deeper mystery than ever, and which an- other sought to account for by assuming & Aifference in resources or social standing of thelr bullders, appears to Dr. Pais, on the contrary, the obviously simple solution, which he offers.

He thus sums up bis inference in the following widely synthetic proposition: “Tl Nuraghe. . . devrebbe considerars! come 1a forma non solo prototipica ma esclusiva 41 tutta architettura dell’ antico abitante dolla Sardegna.” ‘This position is not easy to dispute, It 1s strengthened by the fact that all endeavors to classity the nuragh! in view of determined differences of purpose have thus far been unsucces ful. A very general division separates them Into three kinds—single, linked, and group- ed; but, according to several authorities, it rarely happens that nuragh{ are found in complete isolation, and the linking and grouping can easily be explained by refer- ence to the character of local situation rather than by specific differentiation in the matter of determinable purpose. When, for example, three closely neighboring hills of- fer favorable positions for construction, it

found on each on ‘an enflode, tho nuraght are linked, while Dunch, or cluster, results from closer juxta- position of the respective sites.

The principal point which forced tseit upon the notice of the writer will be noted presently; but, among the many valuable bibliographical resources placed at his di posal through the courtesy of the Ii- brarlans at Cagliari and Sassari, he could hardly fall to mark the singular insistence lald by most of the contestants in turn upon this or that minor, not to say niggling, & tall, tn the endeavor to establish an hypo- thesis. ‘Taking but one example, wo may say that an opponent of Spano's very plausl- ble theory of the nuraghe as a dwelling based his principal arguments on the ab- once of light and air in the interfor of the structure, as well as on the general small-

ees of the means of ingress, which rarely admits of one's entering upright. Now when, in the namo of all ethnological ex- perience, did the cowering savage ever ob- Ject to creep into bis primitive lair? It surely argues a parti prie to ignore the fact

that the tent of the North American Indian and the Esquimau snow hut are still commonly accessible only on all foure— sometimes in the more humiliating posture of the serpent. And as for sunlight and oxygen, on the necessity for which the eritle in question dwells at much length, {t may well be asked whether the inhabi- tants of ground floors and cellars on the Castello bill of Cagliari, in thelr narrow streets, enjoy much more of these blessings than did their remote ancestors, the nuraghe-bullders? Scores of families in southern Italy live In one darksome room, the window and door of which are but meagre concessions to civilisation; and, it may be added, the demand for light and alr is one of the first signs that the material conditions of modern civilization are at last looked upon as essential. In this respect, Italy ts still laggard tn the race, for the ordinary Italian bedroom {s, at night, an alr-tight camera obscura, while the ter- Fore of the rallway-carriage, with windows closed and curtains drawn, have become too proverbial for mention. It should also be sald that, even to this day, the Sardinian jepherd frequently finds the nuraghi per- fectly habitable. If one may be permitted another illustration, {t is found in connec- tion with the vexed question as to whether the nuraght were all originally, as now, truncated near the top, or rounded off with & bulbous dome. On this point, a leading authority, basing his argument on the use of the word #éer ins passage from a work commonly assigned to Aristotle (‘De Mirab, Mundt’), of which the genuineness bas, how- ever, been contested, concludes in favor of truncation. But, says the skeptic, how do ‘we know that Aristotlo ever saw s nuragl or any one who had seen one? Ani farther, since ser signifies not only camera festiglate rotunda, bat edificlum rotundum, it appears to the outsider a somewhat arbitrary assumption to restrict the meaning to the former alone. Preserving still the attitude of one un- trained in the psychological (and logical) procedure of archmology, the writer con- fesses to some surprise at the comparatively faint stross laid by the majority of ingu!- rere on what presented itself to him as the most salient general feature in connection with these mysterious towers. Apart en- tirely from the facts of thelr great numbers, of their massive strength, of the admittedly extreme rarity of thelr complete teolation. and of thotr almost invariable situation on ‘eminences commanding a more or less exten- sive fertile district, little attention seems to have been pald, even by Gen. La Mar- mora, to thet markedly favorable strategt- cal positions. Over and over again, whether from the rapid glimpso through a railway- carriage window, or during the more lelsure- ly and studious ramble in the country, the nuraght appeared en éehelon along the jut~ ting points of a range of foothille, backed by the stronger support of mountain-ranges ‘which, in those distant days, must have been well-nigh impassable for an invading ene- my. If wo take further tnto consideration the geographical structure of Sardinia, which offers, on the map, a rugged succession of ‘mountaiis on the east side, from the Straits of Bonifacto to the Gulf of Cagliari, while the western swath, though partly billy, opens out into the rich Campldano and other plains, it soems diffeult to resist the oonvic-

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