The altar-temple of Monte d'Accoddi

Sassari, The Altar-Temple of Monte d'Accoddi. Photo by Marco Ceraglia, 2009, from Digital Resources Sardegna IDV

The complex includes an altar, a village and a hypogeic necropolis. The altar is unique in its kind on the island and in the western Mediterranean. It consists of a large trunk-pyramidal terrace (m 36 x 29; height 5.40 m) and a long trapezoidal access ramp (length 41.80 m; width 7.00/13.50 m; height 9.00 m). The outer masonry consists of irregular rows of large, summarily sketched limestone blocks.
The structure contains a layered filling of earth and stones.
The building is superimposed on a previous altar formed by a smaller quadrangular terrace (23.80 x 27.40 m; height 5.50 m) and a ramp (length 25 m; width 5.5 m). On top of the terrace was the rectangular chapel (m 12.85 x m 7.20) plastered with ochre (the “red temple”), of which the floor and, in part, the perimeter wall (height 0.70 m) with an entrance lined with two holes are preserved; other holes, designed to contain the supporting beams of the double-sloped roof, are present in the floor of the compartment.
This first altar was built in an evolved phase of Ozieri culture (3200-2800 BC) in the center of a coeval inhabited by quadrangular huts, and above the remains of an older village of circular huts perhaps dating back to phases of the San Ciriaco culture (3400 BC).
Some elements connected with the sphere of the sacred are preserved from the village of Ozieri: an irregularly shaped board for trachyte offerings (m 2.80 x m 2.18) - close to the right side of the ramp - and a menhir (height 4.44 m) on the s side, raised in recent years.
The burning of the altar, at the time of the Filigous culture (about 2800 BC), made it necessary to build a new structure, the one preserved today. Perhaps a trapezoidal calcareous slab (m 3.15 x m 3.20) - located near the ramp - resting on three stone bases and equipped with seven holes at the edges and a natural swallow below: perhaps a table for bloody sacrifices, dates back to this phase.
Close to the slab, but foreign to the archaeological area, are two spheroidal calcareous stones of a sacred nature (circumference m 4.85; height m 0.90 - diam. m 0.60). Three other limestone steles come from the building: one (inside the ramp), fragmentary (m 0.40 x m 0.36), has a lozenge and spirals; the second (N side of the terrace), 1.15 m high, shows a stylized female figure; the third (angle d. of the terrace), elliptical (m 0.28 x m 0.18), is marked by 13 parallel grooves crossed by at least two other perpendiculars.
The village huts that surround the altar and the ramp - dating back in part to the Abealzu phase (2600 BC) - have rectilinear walls formed by a plinth of small stones on which a structure of raw bricks or plastered reeds and branches rested. Poles stuck in holes in the floor supported one or two sloping fringe roofs. The rooms have rectangular fireboxes, with a relief border, made of clay.
Among the excavated structures, the trapezoidal “sorcerer's hut” - located at the NE corner of the terrace - is particularly interesting, with 5 irregularly shaped rooms covered by a single-sloping roof; the hut owes its name to a tip of a bovine horn and to some bivalve shells found inside a jug.
The site was still visited at the time of the Monte Claro culture, the Campaniform Vase and Bonnanaro, and more sporadically, in the Nuragic, Phoenician-Punic, Roman and medieval ages.
The necropolis is carved into the limestone wall overlooking the course of the Ottava River, 500 m from the altar. It consists of eight multicellular hypogeums often decorated with bovine protomes and architectural elements.

Update

2/9/2025 - 15:32