<<By freeing the monument from the collapses and the clutter of an overlying sheepfold, the clean-ups and excavation tests at Nuraghe Orrubiu today highlight the ruins relating to the base drum of a classic single-tower nuraghe in polygonal work, with a maximum remaining height of about 4 meters, featuring an internal vaulted chamber in “tholos” style, equipped with a small subsidiary niche, and with a corridor staircase – unfortunately completely destroyed – defended by a counter guard post.
The cyclopean construction, already dismantled in Roman times, due to the confirmed presence of decorated pottery with “comb” patterns and certain forms with typical thickened “corner” edges, can be traced back to the Middle Bronze Age; however, it now clearly reconfirms the reuse in structure, as building materials, of as many as five fragments of figurative statues-menhir, pre-existing in the area: two have been recovered from the ruins; two insist, clearly visible, on the internal masonry fittings, at the north corner between the guard post and the entrance corridor and in the right jamb at the exit between the corridor and the tholos; one is in place on the west façade of the external masonry, at a height of about two meters…>>
(Enrico Atzeni: “The discovery of the statues menhir”; volume edited by Giorgio Murru, published by Cuec – 2004).
In the images: a fragment of a statue-menhir from nuraghe Orrubiu; the nuraghe Orrubiu in the photos by Alessandro Pilia and Marco Cocco.
