Nuraghe Arrubiu

Nuraghe Arrubiu near Orroli is Sardinia's largest nuragic monument, a basalt complex distinguished by its five-tower plan and reddish lichen.

Why it matters

The complex is unusual among Sardinian nuraghi for its five-tower bastion and scale. It also preserves evidence of later Roman reuse, adding a second phase to the monument's long history.

What to notice

The central keep is surrounded by a five-tower bastion, an outer defensive wall with seven towers and an antemural with five more, for a total of twenty-one towers. Several tholos chambers retain their corbelled false domes. Courtyards include basins, cisterns, stairways and traces of a circular meeting hut.

Context and history

Nuraghe Arrubiu was in use from the fourteenth to ninth centuries BCE. Mycenaean pottery found at the site indicates contact with the Aegean. After a period of abandonment, Roman occupants reused the complex as a wine-production facility in the second century BCE. Excavations took place from 1981 to 1996 and resumed in 2012.