Seruci is one of the largest Nuragic settlements in Sardinia. It arose during the Bronze Age in the mining region of Sulcis, in the south-west of the island, a position that favoured its control of the routes between the interior and the south-western coast and its access to mineral resources.
The result of careful planning, the settlement combines the village and the nuraghe of the same name: the dwellings are arranged around common areas, separated by paths that linked the different quarters.
The settlement, the result of careful planning, combines the village and the nuraghe of the same name. The dwellings are arranged around common areas, separated by paths that must have linked the different quarters. Each dwelling consists of distinct rooms for preparing food, storing provisions, working cereals and carrying out craft activities.
On the south-western edge of the village stands the nuraghe, believed to have had five towers and therefore to be pentalobate. The nuraghe, surrounded by the typical outer wall known as the antemurale, has so far been investigated only in part.
The layout of the village recalls important Nuragic settlements such as Santa Vittoria di Serri, Serra Orrios di Dorgali and Su Nuraxi di Barumini. These analogies document, between the Recent and Final Bronze Age, the spread of settlement models able to organise dwellings and collective spaces in an orderly way.
BUILDING TECHNIQUES
The buildings of the village are mostly made of local trachyte stone, worked into medium-sized blocks and laid in irregular courses without mortar.
The most important buildings, intended for collective activities, are the most imposing in the village and are made of larger, regularly arranged stone blocks, showing the exclusive use of a more careful building technique.
COURTYARDS AND INTERIORS
Isolato A, inside the village, best preserves its original structure. It comprises twelve interconnected rooms arranged around a central courtyard. The arrangement of the spaces clearly distinguishes the common areas from those intended for domestic activities. Next to the main rooms open small secondary rooms and niches cut into the thickness of the walls, thought to have been used to store foodstuffs and tools.
The plan of the block finds comparisons in the Nuragic villages of Santa Vittoria di Serri and Su Nuraxi di Barumini and confirms the spread, in Protohistory, of shared settlement models.
Hut 5 reveals daily life within the village: deposits of ashes and charcoal, small hearths, numerous pottery fragments, a grinding stone and other tools for working cereals bear witness to the activities carried out inside the hut. The finds therefore show that, in the dwelling, the space served to prepare food, store provisions and carry out domestic activities.
THE ASSEMBLY HUT
The Assembly Hut is one of the main buildings of Seruci dedicated to the community. It is larger than ordinary dwellings and occupies a central position in the village.
The Assembly Hut is a recurring architecture in the main Nuragic complexes of Sardinia. The circular plan, the seats along the walls, the hearths and the niches are the elements that characterise it. In some cases, these collective buildings also house models of nuraghi, altars or offering tables.
The Hut is believed to have been intended for the assemblies of the population and for ceremonial practices linked to the political and religious life of the village. It is assumed that important decisions were taken here and collective rites were celebrated.
These structures testify that, in the phases of greatest development of the Nuragic civilisation, communal life took on an increasingly central role. Assemblies, ritual banquets and religious ceremonies strengthened the bonds between family groups and the identity of the community, while reinforcing the role of the elites who led it.
At its height, Seruci is believed to have been the hub of a large community, able to control the agricultural and mineral resources of the territory and to take part in exchange networks within Sardinia and in the western Mediterranean.
The size of the monument, the extent of the village and the presence of buildings intended for collective activities testify to the role of Seruci in the surrounding territory as a political, economic and social centre.