The construction history of Nuraghe Losa and the surrounding village spans several phases.

Between the 19th and 14th centuries BC, the keep was built as an isolated tower.

Between the 14th and 12th centuries BC, the site underwent a profound transformation: three secondary towers and the curtain walls connecting them were added. In this phase, the three-lobed bastion took on the form still recognisable today.

Between the 12th and 8th centuries BC, the complex was expanded with the outer wall and the village.

Later periods. The site was also frequented after the protohistoric age: in Roman times and up to the early Middle Ages.

THE FORTIFIED CORE

The heart of the complex is the three-lobed bastion: it comprises the keep, the original central tower, and three secondary towers connected by curtain walls. Inside, the circular chamber still preserves its intact tholos covering, the false dome created by progressively projecting the stone blocks.

Within the keep, a staircase opens in the thickness of the wall and leads to the upper level, where a second chamber, now without its covering, is preserved.

Around the bastion runs the antemurale, a wall reinforced with towers. Further out, another wall encloses the nuraghe and the village.

THE VILLAGE

Outside the bastion stood the village, enclosed by the wider wall. The village structures are only partly legible because of later transformations.

Only part of the settlement has been excavated so far. The village is estimated to have extended over about three and a half hectares.

MATERIALS

The walls are built dry with basalt blocks, the volcanic rock that characterises the plateau.

Today the basalt of the walls is covered with lichens and altered by weathering.

DAILY ACTIVITIES

Daily activities in the village included preparing, consuming and storing food. Grinding stones, handstones and pestles testify to productive and everyday activities. Obsidian and flint artefacts attest to the persistence of stone-working techniques.

LATER FREQUENTATION

After the Nuragic age, the complex took on new uses in Roman times, as a burial place. Common pottery, fine tableware and amphorae testify to the reuse of the site in late antiquity and up to the early Middle Ages.

The first systematic research began in 1890. The surveys, drawings and photographs made at that time still have considerable documentary value.

Between 1915 and 1916, further excavations concerned the nuraghe and part of the village.

During the 20th century, further research, surveys and restorations clarified other aspects of the construction sequence and the organisation of the site.

PRESERVATION

The state of preservation of the monumental core allows much of the architecture to be read clearly today. The keep preserves the tholos chamber, the entrance, the corridor, the stairway and part of the upper levels.

The three towers and long stretches of the curtain walls are also recognisable. The antemurale, the outer wall and the village are preserved more discontinuously, but their relationship with the bastion remains understandable.

SardegnaTurismo, “Nuraghe Losa”

Official Nuraghe Losa website

The name Losa, which in Sardinian means “tomb”, recalls the burials made at the site in Roman times.