The aim of the 2009 campaign undertaken at the orientalising fortress (circa 625-550 B.C.) of the Nuraghe Sirai was to uncover the structure of the fortifications in the central sector (sector B) and continue stratigraphic investigations of a construction adjacent to the doorway (sector A) for which there was evidence to suggest that it was probably a sacred area (hut 2).

SECTOR B

The investigations confirmed the structure of the fortifications as seen in other sectors of the fortress, that is embankments constituted by adjacent blind chambers. The residual summit of the embankment’s external wall, circa 5 m thick, built to the east of the doorway, the surface of the stone and earth fill and a wall perpendicular to the external wall and to that of the pre-existing nuragic wall were uncovered. Inside the nuragic wall was found a block of rooms placed side by side, similar to the three already uncovered in the previous campaigns

SECTOR A

Hut 2

At least two building phases were identified inside hut 2. The first phase was represented by a circular construction, with a religious function, of a type datable to the nuragic Iron Age I (9th and first third of the 8th century B.C.): a so-called rotunda (of circa 2.20 m in diameter) with a floor of large stone slabs on which rested a circular sedile, open to the south-east and three courses of the walls in regular blocks. Associated with the latter structure were the remains of a vaulted roof in small blocks of pink tufaceous limestone, a rectilinear wall on a tangent and, to the south-west, a monolithic rectangular basin formed by two communicating tanks and lastly, to the east, another wall of large rough hewn blocks.

The second building phase (second half of the 7th-first half of the 6th century B.C.) was represented by the adaptation of the oval construction, open to the east, with a wall that covered the circular building and the structures of the western wall, whose external facing showed the characteristic “herring bone” construction technique. The floor, a beaten surface of orange clay, was at the same height as the surface of the pre-existing nuragic sedile. The circular room was filled and covered with the same clay as used for the floor; one of the two tanks in the double basin continued to function.

A votive deposit (deer horn and stone spindle whorls) and several amulets (Horus and a Silenus mask) indicate that the area also had a sacred function in the orientalising period. This was supported by other elements such as the pre-existence of a sacred nuragic monument; the position adjacent to the doorway; the presence of pre-existing sacred furnishings and of a probable altar outside and finds, in the previous campaigns, of votive objects (a stiletto, a fragment of votive sword, a bronze bracelet) on the cobbled surface outside hut 2.