Gonnesa, Serucci Complex

The complex, which includes nuraghe, village and funeral area, dominates the Acqua Sa Canna valley.
The complex of Seruci, which covers more than six hectares, consists of a complex nuraghe, an antewall, an extensive village of huts and at least one tomb of giants, located on the overlooking hill.
The nuraghe, during the excavation phase, reduced to a pile of rubble that rises about 14 m high on the country level, was certainly a complex nuraghe (perhaps pentalobated) with a central keep with three overlapping cells, surrounded by a turreted antewall.
The village consists of more than a hundred huts nestled along a slope on whose peak stands the mass of the nuraghe. Taramelli, who carried out a first excavation campaign, discovered four circular huts. Among these, the hut with a seat counter at the base of the walls and raised niches inside the walls, and another, to which a rectangular courtyard was attached, showed particular interest.
The most recent interventions, concentrated in the SW margin of the settlement - on an area of 550 square meters - have led to the planimetric acquisition of more than 50 rooms of different types that are distributed in six blocks. The blocks, of equal extension and the same “ring” structure, distinct but at the same time interrelated, are mostly arranged in groups of three.
The excavations have so far involved only one block, consisting of 14 environments arranged centripetally around a central courtyard: a typical housing structure from the last phase of Nuragic civilization, the evolution of simple aggregates of single-celled huts.

History of excavations
The site has been excavated several times, starting in 1917, when Antonio Taramelli carried out the first interventions. Subsequent campaigns were conducted, in the years 1983, 1985/86 and 1988, by Vincenzo Santoni.

Bibliography
A. Taramelli, “Gonnesa - Investigations in the Nuragic Citadel of Serucci (Cagliari)”, in Ancient Monuments of the Royal Academy of Lincei, XXIX, 1917; V. Santoni-G. Bacco, “Block A of the nuragic village of Seruci-Gonnesa. The excavation of the 5" hut, in A Millennium of Relations between Sardinia and the Mediterranean Countries, Cagliari, 1987;
V. Santoni-G. Bacco, “Block A of the Nuragic Village of Seruci-Gonnesa: the excavation of rooms 3 and 6”, in Notebooks of the Archaeological Superintendence for the Provinces of Cagliari and Oristano, 5, 1988.

How to get there
Take the SS 126 Carbonia-Iglesias and, at the height of Bacu Abis, turn left on the SP 108 for Portoscuso. Continue for a few more kilometers on SP 108, and you will find, on the left side of the road, the junction for the Seruci complex.