page_title: Nuragic civilization
section_title: Megaron temples
hierarchical_section_title: Nuragic civilization / Culture / Religion / Megaron temples
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Tempio nuragico di Domu de Orgia, Esterzili
context_page_description: The Nuragic civilization, also known as the Nuragic culture was a civilization or culture on the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, Sardinia, which lasted from the 18th century BCE up to the Roman colonization in 238 BCE. Others date the culture as lasting at least until the 2nd century AD or possibly even to the 6th century AD.
  The adjective "Nuragic" is neither an autonym nor an ethnonym. It derives from the island's most characteristic monument, the nuraghe, a tower-fortress type of construction the ancient Sardinians built in large numbers starting from about 1800 BCE. Today more than 7,000 nuraghes dot the Sardinian landscape.
  No written records of this civilization have been discovered, apart from a few possible short epigraphic documents belonging to the last stages of the Nuragic civilization. The only written information there comes from classical literature of the Greeks and Romans, and may be considered more mythological than historical.
context_section_description: Located in various parts of the Island and dedicated to the cult of the healthy waters, these unique buildings are an architectural manifestation that reflects the cultural vitality of the nuragic peoples and their interaction with the coeval mediterranean civilizations. In fact, many scholars see in these buildings foreign Aegean influences.
  They have a rectilinear form with the side walls that extend outwardly. Some, like that of Malchittu at Arzachena, are apsidal while others such as the temple of Sa Carcaredda at Villagrande Strisaili culminate with a circular room. They are surrounded by sacred precincts called temenos.
  Sometimes multiple temples are found in the same location, such as in the case of the huge sanctuary of S'Arcu e sos forros, where many megaron temples with a complex plant were excavated.
  The largest and best preserved Sardinian Mégara is that called Domu de Orgia at Esterzili.
caption: Megaron temple of Domu de orgia
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