page_title: Giants of Mont'e Prama
section_title: Warriors
hierarchical_section_title: Giants of Mont'e Prama / Warriors
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: guerriero, monte prama, civilt nuragica, scultura, preistoria, età del bronzo, sardegnaEnglish: Sculpture, Giant of Monte Prama, warrior, Sardinia, Italy, Nuragic civilization,archaeology, bronze age
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: This iconographic type – very often represented among the Nuragic bronze figurines – has been reported only twice among the Mont'e Prama statues, plus a third possible case, of which only one is in a good state of preservation. However, a reassembled shield, not assigned to any of the former three specimens, and numerous other fragments of a shield and (possibly) of a torso, suggest that the number of warriors was larger.
  Initially, the fragments of round-shaped shields had been attributed to archers, but later the hilt of a sword and similarities of the shields geometrical patterns to those of some bronzetti, led to postulate the presence of one or more statues of warriors.
  Warriors differs from archers essentially through their garb. 
  The best preserved head exhibits an "envelope-shaped", crested and horned Nuragic helmet that – like archers' helmets – must have presented the typical long horns portrayed in bronze figurines. Several small cylindrical fragments have in fact been found during excavations. Once recomposed, some of these horns appear to bear small spheres at their terminal ends, like in some bronzetti, either anthropomorphic (in this case only warriors, never archers) or zoomorphic.
  The best preserved warrior's statue is among the most striking pieces of Mont'e Prama. Besides the horned helmet – whose horns are broken – it is marked by the presence of an armour with vertical stripes, short on the back but solid on the shoulders and more expanded on the breast.
  By analogy with armours visible on several bronze figurines, it is thought that the breastplate was built of metal strips applied on hardened leather. A panel, decorated and fringed, comes out from the lower part of the breastplate.
  The shield is represented in a very detailed way, with chevron patterns reminiscent of geometrical drawings on pintaderas, and with radiating grooves that converge towards the shield-boss.
  The bronze figurine most similar to the warriors of Monte Prama is the one found at Senorbì.
caption: Nuragic sandstone warrior from Monte Prama
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