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0:00
Stephanie: Welcome, everyone, to an extra January Flash Talk. I’m so excited to be here today. This Flash Talk is entitled, “Local Ritual Practices in Rural Sanctuaries of Sardinia during the Punic and Roman Rule.” And our presenter today is Mattia Lauretti, and he was a visiting students during this past fall 2024 with our IPAMAA program here at the Kelsey. So thank you so much for being with us today. I’ll throw it over to you and we can get started.
0:41
Mattia: Thank you, thank you. Thank you—I hope you can hear me properly, but I think, you know what, it’s fine. Yeah, thank you very much for having me here, first of all, and also, thank you for the wonderful period in Ann Arbor. And today, I will just give you a brief introduction of my research project, focusing on just a small portion of the findings. And in particular, I will share with you some data that I have collected from the case study I am investigating.
1:13
I’m not sure it can... just let me see if I can switch slide—yeah, I can do this.
1:19
So the goal of my research is to understand the religious significance of the nuraghi during the Punic and Roman periods. For those unfamiliar, a nuraghe is basically a megalithic, prehistoric building of Sardinia and maybe later, we’ll just introduce these a bit more in detail. My main research question centers on the cultic purposes of these prehistoric buildings in the later phases—so not the Bronze Age, not the Iron Age, but more like the later phases, so Punic and Roman phase—
1:53
and whether there was a continuity with earlier, indigenous schools. This naturally raises further questions that just emphasize chronology of their use and the extent of this continuity in the material culture, and also in the architectural settings—issues that have not been thoroughly addressed yet.
2:16
A key problem in this research is that no previous studies have analyzed the entire material assemblage of a single nuraghe. While, for example, Peter van Dommelen’s innovative project, the S’Urachi Project, ongoing since 2013, has made significant strides in understanding nuraghe uses in later periods. But its focus has been on the areas outside the nuraghi—such as the villages, let’s say—rather than the cultic activities within the main towers. This is more my focus,
2:56
so trying to understand how the main towers of the nuraghi were reused for cultic purposes. So in this talk, I will focus on a micro-study, let’s say, specifically on the reuse, so to say. This word is actually problematic—saying “reuse”—it’s still a bit not very clear whether there is a reuse or a continuity of use, but yeah. Later, we’ll address this question a bit further. Uhm... so yeah. I will focus on the Nuraghe Su Mulinu and its reuse as a sanctuary from the 4th century BCE until the
3:34
Roman period. I will share some unpublished findings regarding material assemblage, and I will also argue why the material culture found at this site suggests Demeter-related cults. This interpretation, in my opinion, needs to be problematized. In fact, I argue that indigenous qualities and their agency in shaping their identity must be also acknowledged. So very briefly, I want to introduce what is a nuraghe. Nuraghe is basically a prehistoric defensive structure—
4:11
also, on the word defensive, it’s problematic, but let’s say here at the moment “defensive.” Characteristic of Sardinia—Sardinia’s Bronze and Iron Age landscapes— it typically features a single tower with tholos-style architecture, but some structures are more complex, resembling small castles, let’s say, as you can see from the slide, with multiple towers surrounded by defensive walls. And these also are data that might be interesting, that Sardinia has approximately 7,000
4:47
nuraghi, though not all complex types. Indeed, the complex types are less common than the single-tower ones. So as I said, the construction phase of the nuraghi is basically the Middle Bronze Age, late Bronze Age. In the Iron Age, no longer nuraghi were built. And so indeed, the construction of nuraghi ceased between the 11th and 10th century BCE. And during the early Iron Age, the 10th–8th century BCE, many were abandoned, while others were repurposed as sanctuaries.
5:30
So already in this period, there is refunctionalization of the sites. In these sanctuaries, the central towers often serve as sacral spaces, while villages that were in this phase built often are characterized with circular huts, and they surround the main nuraghe, let’s say.
5:59
It is important to say that these villages were built only in the Iron Age. Yeah, so, what is important also is that in this period—it is the current interpretation—is that there is a rise of the indigenous elite groups, and now, I will not list all the elements for these assumptions, but I will just mention the fact that there are some architectural features such as the council huts here—it’s in the red marks. They are often composed with circular benches,
6:38
accommodating only a few community members, suggesting hierarchical social organization. But yeah, as I said, the features that might address the— an elite rise is actually—are actually many more, like for example, just to mention a few elements and... let’s say, highly valuable objects coming from Etruria or the Eastern Mediterranean.
7:11
Now, how the refunctionalization of a nuraghe was shaped, let’s say. Most of the times, there is the reconstruction of small altars resembling the nuraghi—nuragic structures. Often, these were placed in the main towers of the of the nuraghe, and often associated to these lamps, were found upside down around these kind of altars. So this process—this sanctuary, let’s say—this refunctionalization started, as I said, in the early
7:53
Iron Age, but sometimes also a bit later. So between the 10th, 9th, and sometimes 8th century BC. And this setting continues until the Phoenician and Punic colonization, so until the 6th century BC, but I will talk regarding this in a moment. I will come back on this later because it’s part also. of my micro-study, let’s say. So, yeah, I want to also keep—yeah, this is another type of these models of nuraghi, but yeah. I will just move forward and come back to this later.
8:30
I would like now to introduce also the colonial context that shaped the history of Sardinia, marked the history of Sardinia. And it is important because this colonial context entangles in a way also with the indigenous culture and the Iron Age development, in terms of archaeology and history. So... I want to just briefly say that the Phoenicians established emporia along the Sardinian coast between the 8th and 6th century, so...
9:02
in the late, middle–late Iron Age, uhm... And by the 5th and 4th century BCE, Carthage founded the proper colonies in Sardinia, and then only in the 3rd century BCE Sardinia, became a Roman colony together with Corsica through the... the First Punic War. Now, I would like to move directly to my case study, so I can say something about that. And... so these are the—in black, we have the studies—sorry, the sites I am investigating,
9:45
but in particular, I’m focusing on this nuraghe called Nuraghe Su Mulinu. So it’s the red dot there. As you can see, these are a bit far from the oldest nuraghi, let’s say, makes kind of clusters a bit far from the colonial settings—settlements, but yeah. At the moment, I don’t want to say too much regarding that. So regarding my micro-study—so my case study—it’s called Nuraghe Su Mulinu, and this site was partially excavated with the work focused on the central chambers and parts of the
10:28
internal units and the concealed huts. You can see maybe here also that part of the village was not excavated yet. Usually also at this type nuraghe also has a village next to it, especially we know that because there are the concealed parts that are built inside the nuraghe. And yeah, but the village remains unexcavated. So the nuraghe, this nuraghe, was originally built in the Bronze Age, but what interests me here is the refunctionalization as a sanctuary during the Iron Age.
11:05
In this period, in the main chamber... I don’t know if we can point... maybe you can see my? Yeah... where there was a sacellum, like a shrine, with a basin altar, and this was constructed in the in the Iron Age. Additionally, two nuraghe models were placed in the so-called “Tower F” that you can see on the north side in gray, and in the concealed huts—number 14. So this resembles, let’s say, a typical reorganization of space of the Iron Age.
11:43
This is the main chamber that has been reused both in the Punic and Roman period, and I will go very quickly here, but there should be much to—I should say very much, but I will just go a bit quick and say that what you see is the Iron Age setting, except for the wall built on this basin altar. The wall is apparently much older—much later, probably the middle Imperial period or later Imperial period.
12:17
But what you see here is—the altar in the center of the room is the Iron Age setting and also the bench on the side is the Iron Age setting. The altar also had an upper part with a kind of slide that would probably be used to let liquid dive into the basin. But yeah, maybe later, we can discuss further about this. This is, again, the setting of the plan of the main chamber where the ritual was performed, and many lamps,
12:58
up to 300 lamps, were found—Nuragic lamps— so... yeah, dating from the 8th century to the 6th century BCE—were positioned upside down in both the main chamber, so this one, and in Tower F. Unfortunately, the data—sorry, the documentation— and revising is not completed because these were old excavations from the ’80s and ’90s, but I’m trying to redigitize some of these documentation. So the lamps that were found were, some of them, published and categorized into different
13:35
typologies, spanning, as I said, from the 9th, 8th century BCE until the 6th century BCE. And my work began with analyzing these findings to understand the sites for context with important artifacts. By the 6th century BCE, indeed, we can see really Phoenician lamps. For example, this one; this is where my work of data collection starts.
14:02
And these Phoenician lamps with pinched nozzles seems appearing alongside local Nuragic lamps. So we have, at one point in the 6th century, these two types of lamps that are contemporaries— so the indigenous lamps and the Phoenician lamps. On the right side of the slide, you can see the one of the 10th Phoenician lamps—10 Phoenician lamps that were found contemporary to the Nuragic one. Not only lamps but also other imported products were found. Indeed, from my
14:37
data collection, I found out that imported objects such as the east Greek pottery, union amphoras, and Phoenician’s skiphoi began appearing by the 6th—7th, 6th century BCE. However, during this period, indigenous pottery still dominated the assemblage, but by the 5th century BCE, no material evidence of—has been found, suggesting that the site might have been abandoned.
15:05
Then only in the 4th century BCE, a new phase begins, marked by an abundance of Punic pottery, but not locally produced, and a disappearance—the total of disappearance— of indigenous pottery across the island, and, of course, also in the site, replaced by Punic production from the coastal area. So there looks like there is a kind of discontinuation. So at this distribution graph—it’s represented the 4th century BCE and the ongoing
15:37
material. So from the 4th century BCE, the 1st century BCE, marks, let’s say, a period of continuity at the Nuraghe Su Mulinu, lasting until the 2nd century CE. On this slide, you can see the general distribution of the estimated minimum number of vessels found in the main chamber. During this time, there is a noticeable change in how the lamps were deposited. Previously, so in the Iron Age until the 6th century BCE, they were placed upside down,
16:11
but in this period, they are found broken into into smaller fragments and repurposed in kind of cocciopesto, so like a mix of fragments and mortar, to raise the pavement level and... And of course, this may suggest that they are no longer found in their primary context. So here, I understand it’s a very general graph with very general labels—Punic, Roman lamps, for example, is very general, but it has to be—had to do this to shorten up a bit everything. What—it’s very
16:45
interesting is that the lamps during this periods are often associated with kernophoroi and kernoi, objects often linked to the cult of Demeter. This connection becomes even more intriguing when, for example, compared to other ideological contexts like Sicily or North Africa, but also Greece or South Italy. Additionally, a terracotta votive feature of a figure—a figurine holding, presumably, a piglet, suggests ties to a chthonic cult. Alongside disfiguring various Punic jewelry, like these
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ones, were found—likely, these might be parts of necklaces or other decorative items. And this, again, were found in very chaotic stratigraphic units. So this was a very brief introduction of my—a very small part of my data, but I wanted to focus on the 4th century BCE. Because that’s a big turning point, because it’s where, probably, there is an introduction of the cult of Demeter. Now, I would like to move to the conclusions and problematize a bit the
18:00
topic and the results—the data I proposed. So what the interpretation of the sites so far used these sanctuaries as a diffusion of Demeter cults following Carthaginian expansion in Sardinia during the 5th and 4th century BCE. Often, these cults are seen as a direct result of Punic colonialism in rural areas for exploitation purposes or, more subtly, as an expression of cultural hegemony by the cities over the countryside. In my opinion,
18:36
this interpretation fails to critically address issues of imperialism and the role of cities, as well as the supposed impact, that they could have had on the chora, so the rural territory outside the cities. Specifically, the assumption that cities could control such vast areas seems to overestimate their power, especially in the 4th century BCE. For example, even recent studies on Carthago have begun to reconsider its influence
19:07
on the—over its chora. So it would be interesting also to do it in Sardinia. Now, to problematize thiis a little bit more and looking at Sardinia, unfortunately, we know a very little about the early phase of Punic colonies. However, Monte Sirai—this is an example in the south of Sardinia—provides a rare case where we understand—understand its full extension. Here, no major administrative or political buildings have been identified. This
19:42
is, of course, does not imply that other Punic colonies were similarly small, but in my opinion, it could be the first in... idea to start problematizing the role of these cities. For instance, Tharros, another city in the eastern—sorry, in the western side of Sardinia, seems to have a more—many more religious centers and a slightly larger settlement area, though the data for such comparison remains incomplete. So I believe following
20:15
this path to understanding the impact—the impact of the cities on the countryside, is still weak and it’s... very hard to understand. But it has to be done because, of course, the nuraghi are in this countryside supposedly—are used—are exploited by the colonies. Another interesting approach, in my opinion... the survey. For example, it’s helpful to examine surveys conducted around Punic colonies, especially from the 4th century BCE. And, for example,
20:49
the Riu Mannu survey in the ’90s, investigating the chora around Neapolis, revealing that many new small farms were established starting, indeed, from the 4th century BCE, but rarely reusing nuragic structures. However, in the island interior, as we can see here, but also reading the previous slide, very few new farms where built in this period; instead, existing Nuragic settlements continued to be used or repurposed. This suggested a full-scale
21:26
reorganization of the territory is barely evident in the archaeological record, and that continuity with indigenous settlement patterns persisted. This raises, of course, an important question: What the reorganization—what was the reorganization and the refunctionization of the nuraghi into Demeter’s sanctuary a top-down initiative led by Punic colonies, or was it driven by indigenous polities? Although this is hard to understand at the moment, it remains a crucial
22:00
question to keep in mind when discussing identity in this archeological context. And finally, I want to... I want to conclude saying something about identity. I want to—let’s say, touch on the question of identity. In Sardinia, it seems to me necessary to revisit a fundamental assumption of modern archaeology. Namely, that two identical material assemblages or contexts can represent entirely different behaviors. For example, considering those [?], which you can see here,
22:38
and that have been found in the site, so this kernophoroi found at Nuraghe Su Mulinu appeared to have been used quite different, differently than a conventional, let’s say, Demeter cult. Indeed, only a smaller number were discovered here in the nuraghe, whereas in traditional Demeter santuaries, kernophoroi are typically found in larger groups and buried underground, as seen, for example, in Sicily or North Africa, but also in other contexts like southern Italy. Additionally,
23:17
the broader context has to be taken into account and is quite significant. So the topographical context, for example. Indeed, the settlement pattern I described earlier does not suggest a massive migration from North Africa, in my opinion, and that might be—indicate a kind of repopulation of the Sardinian interior. From the 1st century BCE onward, there is a significant shift also in production and consumption and also has to be taken into account.
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Indeed, local indigenous products were no longer manufactured near nuraghi. Instead, most artifacts originated from the coast, so where the Punic colonists are.
24:06
This, for local communities, it seems that production was no longer, let’s say, a... let’s say, economically viable. And they were no longer in charge of creating their own material culture, so to say—at least for the earlier 4th century BCE. And this, of course, has profound implications for their identity. I’m going to almost conclude. But yeah, I want to focus on this point, because a community that produces its own artifacts does so within a semantically
24:45
controlled context, where the act of creating an object carries meaning. Here, for example, I have been applying semantic theory, let’s say, proposed by Umberto Eco, which was a semiologist before a famous novelist. And in the famous article from ’67— I translated this to English, and the translation is for a semiological warfare. Eco’s theories focused on communicative chain, and I believe that this concept can also be applied—can also be adapted—to archaeology.
25:23
A communicative chain describes the sequence of actions in which artifacts change context, and thus meaning, at each stage, from production to consumption. For example, take— for example, the kernophoroi found in the nuraghe. These objects were produced in a specific physical and cultural context, where their creation held a particular semantic meaning that Eco calls “codex.” As they move through different interactions and reach a third party, so the
26:01
nuraghe, who may or may not have understood the original significance, their meaning was surely transformed, and when these objects arrived at the nuraghe, they acted as, let’s say, signals, like any other objects or media. However, it was the consumer or recipients who transforms those signals into messages, and this is a crucial passages that often, in my opinion, is not addressed when studying material culture. So those signals were transformed into messages
26:43
and therefore meaning, based, though, on their semantic context, which is, again, the codex that Umberto—he calls it codex. So, in this case, the nuraghe had a distinct physical, historical, cultural environment and also a different development compared to the coastal Sardinia. Therefore, production and consumption were separated by a significant, let’s say, communicative gap, which necessarily resulted in a reinterpretation of the object’s meaning. To conclude, I
27:21
would say that I started my research approaching, like the topic, with a post-colonial, let’s say, lens. But in a way, I would like to move away from that... because a post-colonial perspective might see cultural identity, sometimes, as a dualism of hegemony and subalternity, which doesn't take into consideration what I’ve been trying to say now. So I would like instead to define culture and their full—so material culture—as a communicative chain, and the cultural differences
27:59
as communicative gaps, let’s say. So where you change, let’s say, an element of this chain, you might also have different results in behaviors and culture in general. So this is why I believe that this reuse of the nuraghi as Demeter has to be problematized and reconsidered, because the context of where the Demeter cult was originated and—
28:29
yeah, let’s say, was performed—is very different from this one. Yeah, this was my conclusion. It was a very brief introduction of the data, but I will be more the happy to to get questions—to answer some questions—and thank you.
28:47
Stephanie: Absolutely. Thank you so much. So if anyone has questions, please go ahead and put them in the chat, or feel free to unmute yourself.
29:03
Will: Hey, Mattia, how are you? Mattia: Hi, I’m good. Will: Good. Thank you so much—it was a wonderful presentation. I have a maybe a very minor question. I was just curious about the lamps. I mean, I guess why lamps as offerings? And were they—the ones that you were finding—were they sort of standard domestic fare or were they, you know, stylistically different, specifically manufactured for—as
29:32
ritual offerings, which I guess might play into your like final point there about that, you know production and consumption and change in meaning. Mattia: Yeah, yeah, thank you for the question. Well, it depends in what period. Specifically in the Iron Age, they simply are produced specifically to—for, I mean, larger- scale, not to light up environments, but for that purpose. While in the Punic and Roman period—maybe I can also come back to the slide.
30:08
Here, I have listed—I was showing you just a few of the lamps. I don’t if I’m still sharing, but hopefully. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, the Punic lamps from the 1st century BCE on the left are, in a way, common lamps. The thing is the extraordinary number of the lamps found in the site, especially in the small chamber, like more than 250. There are also Roman lamps... and this site, for example, compared to other sites that I’m investigating in my micro-study,
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seems to display a quite different material assemblage, in terms of numbers. There are other sites that have about 300 kernophoroi and about 2,000 lamps in a very small space, and... and that’s extremely indicative, let’s say. But I decided to pick this case study because of the documentation that was more or less clear. I knew where the objects were in the stratigraphic units, while in the other sites, not really... Yeah. And here, I was just showing the the material culture,
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like a few objects of the material—of the assemblage that comes from the 1st century BCE.
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But yeah, the lamps are also produced in their own period—sorry, are also used in the Roman period and from the 1st century BCE, you see a change from the Punic lamps to the Roman lamps.
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Will: Thank you.
31:58
Stephanie: Do we have additional questions?
32:18
I’m getting a lot of... “thank you for such a great presentation” in the chat. Echoed by a few people here. We have one question from Ellen Lynch. It says, “Why were the lamps upside down?”
32:36
Mattia: Yeah. No, it’s actually a good question. I’ve been asking myself the same question... It’s not clear. I mean, it can be... a behavior that has many meanings. Well, the original interpretation from the Iron Age archaeologist, prehistoric archaeologist, is that this is a ritual connected to... I’m sorry—I will explain it my way, but I’m sure there is a word for that. Passing from a phase of life to another, like... to be honest,
33:19
it’s not that solid. I mean, I don’t know why the lamps... yeah. I mean, they might mean something related to chthonic cults, that’s for sure, but, I mean, everything—it’s a chthonic cult. But yeah, it’s a good question actually.
33:39
Stephanie: Great. We have another question here: Can you expound on the difference between the post-colonial approach and the communicative sequence theory? Mattia: Well, I mean... Yeah, I can try to do it in a minute. I also have been very quick on this today, but I think... post-colonial approach means a lot of things, like it can be—it’s quite varied, specifically in Sardinia was... framed
34:13
into hegemony subalternity, where the hegemony was controlled by, let’s say, powerful people in the, in the cities. I’m making this quite simple, but to try to make it seem clear. And the countrysides where the nuraghi are, it seems to be a society—sorry—a context of peasants, just peasants, but.. this is where I believe there is the dualism that—where this—this approach fails because if until the 6th century BCE, the interior was the place of
34:53
the elite groups, it doesn't explain where the elite groups ended up. They just disappeared from the interior? They vanished? That’s not really clear. So creating this dichotomy between the... people that control history and have power and allow me the term, please, but let’s say the victims, so creating two categories of who has power and the peasants is, in my opinion, reductive, while with the other approach, with the communicative sequence series, let’s say...
35:32
You tackle something that is—you can really understand also in archaeological terms. Who is controlling production? Who was controlling consumption? Which are the people between production and consumption? And if I consume, for example, an object—okay, in a globalized world, this is very hard to understand for us—but if I use an object that comes from, let’s say, in New Zealand, and I’m not in a globalized world, the creation of the
36:08
object in New Zealand was built in a context that is completely different from the context here in Germany that I’m using, and not only the context, but also the other elements of this chain are different, such as me as an individual, me in this society here in Germany, and yeah. And itself, themselves, the objects, are just, as Eco puts it, just signals. And when you get the signal, then you have to transform that into a message. And that depends a lot on what we were saying,
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like the context and whether you are the direct producer of the object and so on. Yeah, that’s... I hope I explained it.
36:54
Stephanie: There’s another question here... Over the years, were these sites looted or plundered, and if so, can you estimate what was taken?
37:04
Mattia: Yeah, over the years, in like... in the sense, like, in the last year—like the last hundred years, or more like in the Roman period, because they have been looted already in the late Roman period. I haven’t put a picture of stratigraphy here... But yeah, they were already lootings in the Roman period, but yeah... of course, they are massively looted also nowadays, because most of the nuraghi are, I mean, are visible. You can just easily dig
37:41
up and find something, and I think also the very identitary culture of Sardinia moves people to, to do that... a bit more often than usual. So yeah, they often loot it. Therefore, I think also that the very little presence of kernophoroi or other objects might even be—might be also because of lootings, but, I don’t know... That’s just an argument ex silentio, so it doesn’t make much sense.
38:21
Stephanie: Well, thank you so much. We really appreciate you being here today and sharing your research with us. The presentation was incredibly interesting. Thank you so much.
38:34
Mattia: Thank you. Thank you for having me, really. Yeah, and thank you again for the wonderful semester in Ann Arbor. Stephanie: Absolutely. It was great to have you.
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