Ballao, Funtana Coberta's Sacred Well

The monument is in Gerrei, a mountainous region of south-eastern Sardinia, located in a valley floor enclosed by a small clearing.
The temple, built with limestone boulders in a subsquared work, consists of a small vestibule, a narrow descending staircase covered with a stepped floor, and a circular chamber covered with “tholos” (total length 10.60 m).
Of the high level, only the plant profile has reached us. The emerging structures are currently limited to the perimeter wall in the shape of a key lock that encloses the atrium and the well drum. The vestibule or atrium, partially paved, has a rectangular plan: there is no seat counter. The staircase leading to the well chamber, with its vertical walls, consists of 12 steps. The width of the stairwell, of m 0.90 above the ground, widens considerably in the middle of its development and then shrinks again to about m 0.90 near the last step, for a total depth of m 2.70.
The “tholos” chamber, without the last closing ring, with an almost circular plan (3.50 m in diameter), is about 5.50 meters high. The masonry consists of crudely squared blocks arranged in regular rows with a few wedges of reinforcement. The room is paved with limestone slabs arranged in a beam. At the center of the floor, the barrel of the well opens, whose width goes from 1.35 m at the mouth to 0.90 m at the base given by the living rock; it develops below the floor of the chamber and is covered - throughout its development (m 5.20 deep) - by medium-sized stones arranged in 36 rows.
Of the archaeological finds found during the 1918 excavations, never published, Taramelli reports only a fragment of an elliptical grinder, various grinders and pestles, a fragment of a porphyrite mallet and scant ceramic fragments of crude dough.
The 1994 excavation, with a first essay opened about 0.50 meters east of the sacred well - highlighted the basic row of a wall section of a circular compartment; the masonry consists of a double wall of large stones, squared in the visible face. The interior of the compartment is paved with medium-sized polygonal slabs.
At about 1.60 m north-east of this environment, another rectilinear structure has emerged whose interior, the size of collapse, has not yet been investigated. The south-east side of the room connects, to the north-east, to a third circular wall structure contemporary to it.
The finds returned from the excavation consist essentially of ceramic material from the Nuragic era. In particular, these are fragments of fairing vases with an oblique shoulder to the inside, of hemispherical bowls with an enlarged and rounded hem, of pots with a neck, of pots with an enlarged rim, of vases with an oblique edge to the inside, which are found in nuragic contexts of recent and final Bronze. The site was still in use in the Early Iron Age.

History of excavations
It was excavated for the first time in 1918 by Antonio Taramelli and then in 1994 by Maria Rosaria Manunza. It has been restored in recent times by Giovanni Ugas.

Bibliography
A. Taramelli, “Ballao nel Gerrei. Proto-Sardinian temple discovered in the Sa Funtana Coperta region”, in Notizie Scavi, 1919, pp. 295-312;
G. Lilliu, The Nuragic Civilization, Sassari, Carlo Delfino, 1982, pp. 57, 168, 227;
G. Lilliu, The Sardinian civilization from the Paleolithic to the Nuraghic Age, Turin, Nuova ERI, 1988, pp. 526-527, fig. 200; M. R. Manunza, “Excavation survey at Funtana Coberta-Ballao. Preliminary report”, in Notebooks of the Archaeological Superintendence of Cagliari and Oristano, 14, 1997, pp. 75-89.
Funtana Coberta, nuragic temple in Ballao nel Gerrei - curated by Maria Rosaria Manunza. -Cagliari: Sardinian school, 2008.

How to get there
From Ballao, take the road to Escalaplano; after about 1.5 km, turn south and follow the signs for the well. Continue along a slightly steep road until you arrive, after a hundred meters, at the gate that closes the archaeological area, on the road.