Pompu, Nuraghe Santu Miali

The monument is located in a hilly area of the upper Marmilla, on the SE slopes of Monte Arci. The building consists of a central tower and a quadrilobed bastion with an inner courtyard. The outer wall of the main tower, of which you can see only one row referring to the first floor chamber, is made of isodomed work with sandstone blocks. Inside, you can find - in S - the outlet of the walking ladder. This one, freed from collapses during the last excavation campaigns, has an ogival section.
Of the room on the ground floor, also partly freed from the collapses, there are 6 rows of parallelepiped blocks.
The wall curtains of the bastion show a rectilinear pattern in the quadrants exposed to E, S and O, and a curvilinear pattern in the northern one. The S curtain - restored in ancient times - is made of isodome work, with worked blocks, in the lower rows, while it has large sandstone boulders in the last remaining row. The corner towers, because of the rubble it is not possible to establish the articulation of the interior spaces, have circular plan profiles.
The courtyard that extends to the S of the keep, with a reniform plan and partially encumbered with stone, was reused - in late antiquity - for cultural purposes. The presence of a beautiful basalt architrave in the curtain E of the bastion leads us to believe that access to the complex took place from this side.
A village of huts, bordered by a wall and reused in medieval times, extended around the nuraghe.

History of excavations
The site was excavated between 1998 and 2001, under the scientific direction of Emerenziana Usai.

Bibliography
E. Usai-C. Faa-V. Marras-G. Ragucci, The Santu Miali Nuraghe: Pompu, Cagliari, Askos, 2002, pp. 6-15; V. Marras-E. Usai, “The obsidian lithic industry of the territory of Pompu (Or)”, in Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference The Obsidian of Mount Arci in the Mediterranean: archaeological research and the preservation of the landscape for the development of the inland areas of Sardinia, Cagliari, 2004, pp. 347-350.

How to get there
The megalithic nuragic complex of Santu Miali is located on the border between the territory of Pompu and that of Morgongiori, on a hill about 1.5 km from Pompu, to the left of the road to Curcuris; the archaeological area covers two and a half hectares.