page_title: Giants of Mont'e Prama
section_title: Oragiana baetyls
hierarchical_section_title: Giants of Mont'e Prama / Oragiana baetyls
caption_attribution_description: English: Scaraboid seal from Monte Prama (Sardinia)
context_page_description: The Giants of Mont'e Prama are ancient stone sculptures created by the Nuragic civilization of Sardinia, Italy. Fragmented into numerous pieces, they were found by accident in March 1974, in farmland near Mont'e Prama, in the comune of Cabras, province of Oristano, in central-western Sardinia. The statues are carved in local sandstone and their height varies between 2 and 2.5 meters.
  After four excavation campaigns carried out between 1975 and 1979, the roughly five thousand pieces recovered – including fifteen heads and twenty two torsos – were stored for thirty years in the repositories of the National Archaeological Museum of Cagliari, while a few of the most important pieces were exhibited in the museum itself. Along with the statues, other sculptures recovered at the site include large models of nuraghe buildings and several baetylus sacred stones of the "oragiana" type, used by Nuragic Sardinians in the making of "giants' graves".
context_section_description: The word "baetylus", probably from Hebraic Beth-El ("house of God"), originally denoted  sacred stones of simple geometric shape and aniconic. In analogy to the religious meaning borne by their oriental counterparts, it is thought that for the Nuragics they could represent the deity's house or the god himself, in an abstract and symbolic way. This is suggested by their constant presence in the cultic places of Nuragic civilization, from sanctuaries like Su Romanzesu in Bitti, to giants' graves.
  These artifacts can be divided into cone-shaped and truncated cone-shaped baetyls. The distinction is chronologically relevant, in that the latter are more recent and pertain to isodomic stone block giants' graves. At Mont'e Prama truncated cone-shaped baetyls with holes, of the so-called "Oraggiana" (or "Oragiana") type, have been found. According to archaeologist Giovanni Lilliu, the holes could represent the eyes of a deity, protecting and watching over the tombs. Nuragic baetyls are symbolic items typical of the Middle and Recent Bronze Age, sculpted approximately from the 14th century BC.
  Their presence in the Mont'e Prama necropolis has been explained by Lilliu with two alternative hypotheses: the baetyls originated from a wrecked giants' tomb or they are reproductions of more ancient specimens, due to a wish to preserve an ancient line of Nuragic tradition, in a sort of nostalgic commemoration. The double row of holes noticed in one of the baetyls from Mont'e Prama, unattested elsewhere in Sardinia, suggests that these artifacts are the same age as the necropolis. Some scholars believe in fact that they were expressly produced for the Monti Prama complex.
caption: Scaraboid seal from Monte Prama
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