Sardinia, the ‘Easter Island’ of the Mediterranean

The time has come, the carnival season is over, which means that the Easter holidays are approaching. Do these words make you feel slightly nervous because you don't know where to go this year? Then why not visit Easter Island! Don't worry, I'm not sending you to the South-East Pacific. My Easter Island is only a few hours' flight away from the UK.

You guessed it: I'm talking about Sardinia. While you have to be prepared for anything at this time of year in this part of the world – sometimes you can experience four seasons in one day – Sardinia enjoys early summer temperatures and there is little chance of rain. The island also charms visitors with its impressive Easter customs. However, that alone does not make Sardinia Easter Island per se, as it shares these characteristics with other Mediterranean Easter destinations. No – just like on Easter Island at the opposite end of the world, Sardinia also has mysterious, ancient stone giants that even bear a certain ‘family resemblance’ to the giants of the South Seas:

For thousands of years, the Sardinian giants had literally disappeared from the face of the earth and from people's memories. However, one beautiful spring day in 1974, Sisinnio Poddi was ploughing his field at Mont'e Prama on the Sinis peninsula in western Sardinia when his plough hit an obstacle. The farmer set about digging up what he thought was a field stone and found himself face to face with the head of a giant. Signore Poddi's work on this field was then over, because between 1975 and 1979, archaeologists carried out four excavation campaigns there, with further ones following in 2014 and 2016. The result: the remains of the most important necropolis of the Nuragic culture were found at Mont'e Prama.

Members of an aristocratic warrior caste were buried at this special site. Almost all of those interred were young, strong men. The 28 limestone statues, which were reconstructed from thousands of fragments, also depict fighters: boxers, archers and warriors with helmets, shields and swords. The figures are between 2 and 2.5 metres tall. Their starkly stylised faces suggest that these are representations of archetypes, perhaps even god-like beings. The statues were a sensational find, one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in the Mediterranean region in the 20th century. With an estimated age of 3,000 years, they are probably the oldest free-standing large sculptures in Europe, which means that the Nuraghe people were even ahead of the Greeks in this respect.

If you are now curious and would like to visit the mysterious giants on your next holiday in Sardinia, you can do so at the Museo Civico Giovanni Marongiu in Cabras and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Cagliari.

With a Sardinian ‘Adiosu’, I bid you farewell for today.

Yours, Joachim Waßmann

Featured image: Capo San Marco on the Sinis peninsula, photo: Sanna 66, Creative Commons.