Fasti Online Home | Switch To Fasti Archaeological Conservation | Survey
logo

Excavation

  • Montalè
  • Montalè
  •  
  • Italy
  • Sardinia
  • Province of Sassari
  • Sassari

Tools

Credits

  • The Italian Database is the result of a collaboration between:

    MIBAC (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali - Direzione Generale per i Beni Archeologici),

    ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) and

    AIAC (Associazione Internazionale di Archeologia Classica).

  • AIAC_logo logo

Summary (English)

  • The pre-nuragic necropolis of Montalè is constituted by at least six rock-cut hypogea. Three were re-adapted as oil mills and their original plans are unrecognizable. Only a few traces of the fourth tomb were seen in the section of a modern quarry.

    In hypogea V and VI, the only ones preserving the original structure, cleaning and survey were undertaken in 1983 and an archaeological investigation took place in 2001. Tomb V has been named the Tomba delle Protomi Taurine as the antechamber A presented six taurine protome with rectangular elongated heads and large crescent-shaped horns, plus a seventh of which only the horns remain.

    At the centre of the antechamber was a dividing wall with a niche in its central part, suggesting that the tomb may have had a ritual space.
    From the three doorways which opened in the front and the sides of antechamber A, access was gained to seven cells in a radial arrangement. The hypogeum had been emptied of the ancient depositions and only a few sporadic pottery fragments, including one decorated with the typical Monte Claro grooves, were found in the antechamber.

    Tomb VI presented an entry corridor, an antechamber, a chamber with pillar and two residual lateral cells, whilst a third had been destroyed by quarrying and only its doorway remained. The residual deposit produced a few fragments of Monte Claro pottery.

    The architectural elements and the taurine protome recall similar examples in the necropolises of Monte d’Accoddi- Sassari and Anghelu Ruiu- Alghero and in Upper Neolithic contexts at Ozieri. The Monte Claro pottery attests the reuse of the Neolithic structures during the Copper Age.

  • Alba Foschi Nieddu - Soprintendenza Beni Archeologici delle Province di Sassari e Nuoro 
  • Isabelle Paschina 
  • Paola Basoli  

Director

Team

  • Società Archeologica Sassarese
  • G. Fois
  • G. Granara
  • N. Lutzu
  • C. Cubeddu

Research Body

  • Soprintendenza Beni Archeologici delle Province di Sassari e Nuoro

Funding Body

Images

  • No files have been added yet