In the fascinating and mysterious Sardinia, together with the crystalline sea, the hinterland proud of its traditions, carasau bread and pecorino cheese, it harbors a great mystery. Even today, scholars ask themselves a what the said archaeological site really needed Tomb of the Giants, located in the center-east of the island, in the territory of Dorgali, 6 km from the nuragic site of Serra Orrios and about 17 Km from the Municipality of Lula, dating back approximately to the Nuraghic Age - Middle-Ancient Bronze Age (1.800-1.600 BC). The Tomb of the Giants is one of the best preserved sites on the island of the Nuraghi.
Is the Tomb of the Giants a funerary site?
The tomb is tall and majestic. In the shape of an exedra (a semicircle that resembles the horns of a bull) it is made of granite, with stone slabs 4 meters high and 10 meters wide, arranged horizontally along the corridor walls.
A stele with smooth edges weighing 7 tons, located in the center of the exedra with decreasing dimensions from the center towards the ends, delimits the sacred area and the almost intact funeral corridor with flat arch cover. Therefore a funerary site, but it is not clear whether for an aristocratic class or as a mass grave. No funeral objects were found that could support the hypothesis that the deceased were noble exponents of the place.
I am anyway collective graves, as human remains of several individuals were found, also different in gender and age. The democratization of burial makes us understand how death was considered a characterizing and universal element for everyone.
The exedra (the semicircular hollow) of the Tombs usually faces south-east, ie the direction of sunrise during the winter solstice. This astronomical orientation towards the Sun that rises suggests that the site, in addition to a burial place, could also be a kind of sanctuary where a divinity similar to the sun or in any case connected to the passage between the various annual seasons was venerated.
An astronomical laboratory
Perhaps in connection with the sunset at the summer solstice the tombs of S'Ena and Thomes they are facing South. The reason? still not entirely clear to the experts.
According to three scholars of the National Institute of Astrophysics of the Astronomical Observatory of Brera L. Marchisio, A. Manara and A. Gaspani, the Tomb of the Giants of S'Ena e Thomes has a astronomical azimuth (i.e. the angle formed by the vertical plane passing through a star) of orientation of its axis equal to those of the Tomb of the Goronna giants (Paulilatino, Oristano) and that of Baddu Pirastru (in Thiesi, Sassari).
Three o'clock Tombs of the Giants they would therefore be oriented towards the star Aldebaran, which is part of the constellation of Taurus. So a simple coincidence or a hypothesis that it was a proto form of an astronomical laboratory? For now, scholars can only speculate.
Legends and magic
The legendary belief still persists among those who live near the archaeological site, that the Tomb of the Giants is so called because it was built by enormous beings, precisely giants, or that the site can be a place of energetic emanations, so much so that many still go there today to seek healing or spiritual regeneration through a sleep-trance that puts in contact with the divinities who live there.
For example, even the scholar is convinced of this Mauro Aresu since it states that seen from above, the Tombs of the Giants could have looked like stylized bull heads. The figure of the bull in many ancient cultures represented the male strength in union with the Mother Goddess. Their union generates life and gives energy to the soul so that it can connect to the energy of the earth. Hence the belief that at the Tombs of the Giants rituals related to the theme of life and rebirth took place, precisely in the exedra where it is likely that there were placed stone seats on which to fall into a sleep-trance.
