Villaperuccio, Necropolis of Montessu

The necropolis is scenographically arranged in a natural trachitic amphitheater. It is located in the heart of Sulcis and dominates from an elevated position a fertile plain crowned with hills.
Montessu is the most impressive and largest domus de janas necropolis in southern Sardinia. The tombs, about forty, are mainly of the horizontal projection type and are diversified in plan and size.
The simplest burials have a circular chamber (m 1 in diameter) and a low curvilinear vault. Through the narrow small door, the corpse was introduced and placed in a fetal position.
The most common planimetric pattern, however, is the multicellular one, with a larger room surrounded by several raised niches. The rooms are preceded by curvilinear or rectangular vestibules, the entrances were closed by stone doors embedded in ridges or cavities dug into the threshold.
Other burials, characterized by quadrangular environments, have deep vestibules partly carved into the rock and partly delimited by orthostatic structures, an anticell and two chambers arranged in axial and longitudinal succession. Cavities, niches and cups serve as a place for placing items of equipment or allude to the cult of the Neolithic mother-goddess.
Due to their diversity and monumentality, two tombs located at the ends of the rocky amphitheater and facing each other stand out. Delimited on the front by megalithic alignments that draw semicircular spaces, they have a large pavilion that leads through three openings (the lower central one located almost at ground level) into the back room; here, counters are dug out that delimit different areas. Holes in the floor and ceiling of the entrance pavilion testify to the use of locking the closing doors with wooden poles.
Alongside the two tombs, even more externally, are two other domus that are not as impressive but very significant in terms of Neolithic religious symbolism.
One is the 'tomb of spirals', consisting of a vestibule, an anticell and a cell. The vault was destroyed by the “laccaius” (builders of stone basins), a reprehensible fact that, however, allows us to admire in the open air what remains of the rich interior decoration: wolf teeth wrapped in red ochre, the color of regenerating blood, in the antechel; a taurine protome sculpted in the entrance wall of the cell; spirals symbolizing the eyes or breasts of the goddess-mother, festoons, curvilinear candlestick patterns, as well as the false door that indicates the passage to the afterlife.
The other tomb, called “of the horns”, is of the type with a vertical projection with an access well. The horns, of various shapes, alluding to the cult of the bull god, are carved in the vault and in the step at the foot of the entrance to the domus.
The arrangement of the two pairs of tombs at the ends of the natural semicircle, inside which the remaining burials are placed, seems to denote the existence of a preordained design of the necropolis: it had to assign to the monumental tombs the role of real sanctuaries to protect the sleep of the dead.
The ceramics found during the excavations attest to a long use of the necropolis, in the late Neolithic (culture of San Michele, 3200-2800 BC) and from the recent Eneolithic to ancient Bronze (cultures of Monte Claro, the Campaniform Vase, Bonnanaro, 2400-1600 BC)
The reference village of the necropolis has been identified in the plain below.

History of excavations
It was excavated several times from 1971 to 1990, by Enrico Atzeni and Remo Forresu.

Bibliography
E. Atzeni, “Montessu (Santadi)”, in Journal of Prehistoric Sciences, XXVII, 1972, p. 477 ff.; M. Frau-R.
Monticolo, Sulcis: archaeological guide: Calasetta, Carbonia, Carloforte, Giba, Masainas, Narcao, Nuxis, Perdaxius, Piscinas, Portoscuso, S. Giovanni Suergiu, S. Anna Arresi, Santadi, S. Antioco, Teulada, Tratalias, Villaperuccio, Florence, Art and Nature, 1990, pp. 34-36.

How to get there
From the town of Villaperuccio: cross the town, take the SP 80 in the direction of Narcao and, after the Mannu River, about 1 km away, turn south and follow the signs for the necropolis.