Villaurbana, Baumendula Complex

The archaeological area is located on the extreme hilly foothills of Monte Arci, in central-eastern Sardinia.
The Baumendula is a complex nuraghe, consisting of a central tower and four towers added and connected with a rather irregular planimetric pattern. It is built with trachyte blocks. At present, the collapse situation does not make it possible to fully read the different structures of the building. The monument (m 26 on the north-south axis x m 23 on the west-east axis) keeps the central tower and one of the four towers of the added body well preserved and visible; several sections of the straight-curvilinear and concave-convex curtains of the bastion, and the cells of two other smaller towers, soaring and full of rubble, can also be identified. The walls are made with irregular rows of large blocks that have just been drafted.
The central tower - which remained for a height of 10 m - probably had its entrance on the eastern side. On the rise, it is possible to identify the remains of the inner wall of the upper cell and those of the staircase with an angular closure: the latter, coming from the lower floor, entered the compartment through an open entrance on the western side and now obstructed by the collapse.
The walls of the keep are built with polyhedral blocks arranged in regular rows, especially in the upper walls.
The interior of the preserved corner tower is accessible and almost intact: the room has the 'tholos' (diam. m 3.50/4.00; height. m 6.50) without only the last closing rows. On the walls of the compartment there are numerous slits arranged in two orders.
To the north and east of the monument, wall curtains belonging to advanced fortifications develop on different levels: these are, most likely, the remains of an antewall equipped with towers.
The building dates back to 1400-1000 BC.
Around the nuraghe there was a large town, of which some circular nuragic huts and quadrangular buildings have been highlighted, pertinent to a phase of reuse of the town in Roman and medieval times.

History of excavations
The nuraghe was excavated in 1990 by Vincenzo Santoni.

Bibliography
M. Sequi, Nuraghi: manual for discovering 90 great megalithic towers of Sardinia, Robbiate, Multigraf, 1985, p. 23;
S. L. Dyson, R. J. Rowland, “Survey archaeology around Colonia Julia Augusta Uselis (Usellus): first preliminary report”, in Quaderni - Ministry for Cultural and Environmental Heritage, Archaeological Superintendence for the Provinces of Cagliari and Oristano, 8, 1991, pp. 145-170; G. Nieddu, R. Zucca, Othoca, a city on the lagoon, series “Daedalus”, Oristano, S'alvure , 1991, p. 163;
V. Santoni, “The Baumendula Nuraghe of Villaurbana-Oristano: preliminary note”, in E. Atzeni, P. Meloni, Sardinia antiqua: studies in honor of Piero Meloni on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, Cagliari, Edizioni della Torre, 1992, pp. 123-136.

How to get there
You leave Villaurbana in the direction of Oristano, along the road in the hamlet of Tiria; after about 4.5 kilometers, you reach the hill on which the nuraghe stands on the left; the site can be easily reached through a steep path.