Perugas, Sacred Well by Predio Canopoli

The temple is located in the historic center of Perugas, in the area in front of the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, in Anglona, a region of northern Sardinia.
The sacred well owes its name to Domenico Canopoli, owner of the vegetable garden in which the building was discovered, in 1924.
The well temple, one of the most refined in Nuragic Sardinia, has the usual pattern: a vestibule that leads into a staircase connecting with the well chamber.
The building is built with limestone ashlars - dug from the Laerru outcrops - perfectly processed and installed in regular rows. The rectangular vestibule (width 2.70 m; depth 1.88 m), with a perfectly paved floor, has two seat counters on the walls consisting of two worked blocks. In the center of the room there was a sort of 'sacrificial canteen' with a tray and a hole in the upper part; the block has now disappeared.
From the vestibule you can access the staircase (length m 2.30; width m 0.90) which with 8 steps descends into the small chamber of the well. The roof consists of three slabs arranged at a scalar height. The cell, now soaring, is perfectly circular in plan and conical in shape when raised (diameter 1.70/1.60 m; height 2.75 m); the walls are covered with perfectly worked and connected blocks, arranged in eleven rows in a slight projection. The ashlars of the outer wall of the drum, as well as those of the vestibule, have two relief drafts of uncertain meaning: this is, perhaps, a technical device that facilitated the taking and transport of the blocks, but an ornamental function is not excluded. The drainage system is connected to the drum, consisting of five limestone slabs with channels for the outflow of the water that flowed inside the well.
The area adjacent to the well was enclosed by a fence of large trachyte blocks, built on the remains of a previous rectangular-shaped “in antis” temple. Around the well, the remains of a village stretch and, not far away, a complex nuraghe must have been built. Interesting ex-vote-votes come from the well: among these, a bull figurine represents one of the most refined examples of small Nuragic bronze plastic.
The monument dates back to the end of the Middle Bronze, Recent Bronze, Late Bronze, Iron Age.

History of excavations
The monument was discovered and excavated for the first time, by Antonio Taramelli, in 1924. From 1979 to today Giovanni Pitzalis has overseen some excavation and restoration of the structure, as well as the arrangement of the surrounding area.

Bibliography
A. Taramelli, “Pre-Roman temple well discovered in the village”, in Notizie Scavi, 1924, pp. 522-533;
G. Lilliu, Sculptures of Nuragic Sardinia, Cagliari, La Zattera, 1966, nos. 194 and 197, pp. 317, 319-20; F. Lo Schiavo, “1979, Newsletter”, in Journal of Prehistoric Sciences, XXXIV, 1-2, 1979, pp. 341-342;
F. Nicosia, “Sardinia in the classical world”, in Ichnussa. Sardinia from its origins to the classical age, Milan, Libri Scheiwiller, 1981, p. 440 figg. 464-466;
G. Pitzalis, “Perugas. Pozzo Predio Canopoli”, in The Territory, the Man, the Memory. Twenty-five years of activity, curated by G. Pitzalis, Muros, Stampacolor, 2005, pp. 22-23.

How to get
there Arriving in Perugas, walk the entire main road and turn into Via Garibaldi: the fenced archaeological area is located at the end of the road.