The bronzetti

The extraction and processing of metals were already known in the previous Copper Age, but it was in the Bronze Age, precisely with the establishment of the Nuragic civilization, that metallurgy established itself as an authentic economic and cultural resource.
The extraction and processing of metals were already known in the previous Copper Age, but it was in the Bronze Age, precisely with the establishment of the Nuragic civilization, that metallurgy established itself as an authentic economic and cultural resource.
The metals extracted and processed in Sardinia were copper and lead. Both copper and lead were transported and traded in ingots.
The increasingly refined ability to work copper in alloy with tin (it is this alloy, in fact, that we call “bronze”) developed in the Nuragic age allowed the production of a wide variety of metal artifacts: swords, daggers, axes, pins, fibules, rings, bracelets, combs, razors, hammers, foundry springs, charcoal shovels, etc. Equally important, however, was the production of other bronze artifacts: the so-called “bronzes”, which represent the best-known art form among those produced by the Nuragic culture.
These are small bronze statues (the known specimens reach a maximum height of 35-40 cm in size) obtained with the so-called “lost wax” technique.
This technique involved, in a first phase, the creation in wax of the model of the object that was intended to be made of metal; in a second phase, the object was covered in wax with refractory clay; in the final phase, molten bronze was poured instead of wax.
These figurines, created (it is believed) as an ex-vota, depict a wide range of characters: archers, hoplites, boxers, wrestlers, various female figures, various types of animals, numerous objects related to daily life, models of nuraghe, ships and more.
For us, this is a precious iconographic source, capable of giving us a very effective and suggestive cross-section of the Nuragic world.
If, as has been said, there seems to be no doubt among scholars about the attribution of the above-mentioned function of ex-vota to this category of objects, their chronology appears not entirely clear (oscillating, depending on opinions, between the end of the final Bronze Age and the full Iron Age).

Update

11/7/2025 - 09:29