“Literally means ‘point of passage for carts’, a name dating back to the activities of collecting wood coal that characterized the site in the 19th and 20th centuries: it is a nuragic complex of exceptional architecture and engineering, created during the time of metalworking and linked to the worship of water, a precious element in the arid limestone environment of the Supramonte, the Sardinian ‘dolomites’. The village of sa Sedda ‘e sos Carros is nestled in the wild valley of Lanaittu, a spectacular natural backdrop within the territory of Oliena, reachable by the road that leads (towards Dorgali) also to the national monument of the karst spring on Gologone and to the splendid caves of sa Oche and su Bentu… It was an era in which man learned to extract and forge metals (bronze and iron), from which artifacts found in the numerous circular and oval huts that make up the village derive. One dwelling stands out for its singular architecture and ritual function: it is the ‘source’, a circular environment with internal walls made of two-colored squared blocks – of white limestone and dark basalt – and with a carefully crafted floor. On the walls are sculpted in high relief heads of mouflon with a hole through which water, coming from the channel carved in the wall thickness, spouted into the round monolithic basin in the center of the floor. Near the hut, you will see a large circular terraced structure: it was the basin for ceremonial ablutions, religious rites that involved the use of sacred water. This structure changed over time, becoming a storage place for bronze objects awaiting a new cycle of processing…” (Sardegna Turismo).
The photos of the site are by Pasquale Pintori, Maurizio Cossu, and Lucia Corda. The last image refers to the details of a bull protome belonging to a bronze sheet askos and the protome of a deer from a model of a small ship, also found at Sa Sedda ‘e sos Carros.
