Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/46

28 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud/Ea. in a feeble streak of light on the gloomy staircase and anteroom situated between the stair and the recess at the entrance (Fig. 8). The average height of the best preserved nuraghs varies from nine to fifteen metres; two are known of twenty metres high; and before their present ruinous state scores more must have measured that and even greater height. To judge by those that have least suffered from the action of time, these monuments were all furnished with a staircase leading to a circular terrace on the top, and nearly all the doors pointed south-east. For centuries the peasantry have used nuraghs as common property, in building their houses and the walls surrounding their land. Despite this vandalism in the past, and, I am sorry to write, in the present, fragments of nuraghs still exist, estimated by La Marmora at three thousand ; a figure, it is said, which falls much short of reality. 1 Close study of the principal monuments, which are not mere heaps of ruins, discloses the fact that consider- able diversity was obtained, not in the general outline of the building, which never varies, but in the proportions and details of the plan ; no two nuraghs being exactly alike. Single nuraghs, such as Figs. 8 and 18, form the majority; but "agglomerated monuments," i.e. composed of a massive central block towering far above three or four smaller, which serve as counter-forts, muster stronger than at first appears. That the relief of these structures is less than that of the main tower may be accounted for by the stones of which they were built, yielding uncertainty of outline, still further increased by being hidden under brushwood and accumulated débris. Our Figs. 20-23 represents the Losa Nûragh, a good type of the simpler " agglomerated." It consists of a three-storied central tower, having other three symmetrically arranged, connected with the main body so as to form one block or pile of building triangular in shape, of which the sides are slightly concave and the angles rounded off. 2 1 La Marmora, Voyage en Sardaigne, Pt II. p. 46 ; Pais, La Sardegna, p. 25, note 3. 2 La Marmora examined and gave a drawing of the Losa Nuragh, situated at Abbasanta,in the district of Paoli-Latino ( Voyage en Sardaigne, Pt. II. p. 68-72, Atlas, Plate IX. 1 and ia). Our plan is after M. Gouin's more recent drawing. We regret that our space forbids making use of many more which he kindly forwarded to us. By comparing his with La Marmora's the enormous decay which has occurred within the last fifty years will be observed. When the latter visited it in 1840, the upper chamber was still intact, and the projection of the central cone distinctly visible.