Nuraghe Santu Antine

Santu Antine ("Saint Constantine"), also known as Sa domo de su re ("The house of the king" in Sardinian) is a nuraghe (ancient megalithic edifice built by the Nuragic Civilization) in Torralba, one of the largest in Sardinia. It is located in the centre of the Cabu Abbas plain.

Santu Antine is constructed of huge basalt blocks. The main tower originally reached a height of 23–24 metres (75–80 ft) and contains three tholoi chambers on top of each other. The central tower with diameter of 15 metres (50 ft) is 17 metres (55 ft) high. It has three floors. The top floor is now gone. Multiple 27 metres (90 ft) long corridors built with the corbel arch technique can be observed inside of the Nuraghe, superimposed on two floors. In addition to the towers, the nuraghe featured three wells.

The main structure was built around the 19-18th century BC, and the other parts of the nuraghe date back to the 17th–15th century BC. The remains of a Nuragic village lie nearby.

The nuraghe has been studied several times from an archaeoastronomic point of view, and these studies have shown how its structure is oriented following the solstices. These claims were supported, among others, by the archaeologist Ercole Contu and archaeostronomists Mauro Peppino Zedda, Juan Antonio Belmonte and Michael Hoskin. In particular, Hoskin, science historian and emeritus professor at Churchill College in Cambridge, called Santu Antine "the most sophisticated dry stone monument on earth's surface".

Text adapted from “Nuraghe Santu Antine” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Nuraghe Santu Antine ranks #2,134 of 8,133 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #160 of the 487 mapped in Italy. Founded c. 1750 BC, it is older than 99% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 4 atlas entries founded in the 18th century BC. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 3,907 times in the last 60 days, more than 81% of the atlas. Wikidata records about 45,000 visitors in 2022. See how Italy compares in the castle statistics.

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