“ Climbing the Giara ”, the climb to the plateau of mysteries. The secret charm of a universal place, an island within an island. An autonomous state of nature, of landscape, of ancient history, the exclusive charm of those "primitive" foliage facing the wind, between canter and trot, climbing between the grazing red cork bark that envelops the "flat mountain". When you cross the last of the "climbs" before entering the most exclusive hermitage, between Marmilla and Campidano, it is not obligatory to make the sign of the cross, but the silence must be religious. Crossing the threshold that separates the precipice of the landscape from the "mountain plain" is a bit like entering an unspeakable place where the perception is that of hundreds of modern cameras scrutinizing your every step along paths as defined as they are indecipherable dead-end labyrinths.
Eternal secret
You can go there a thousand times on the Giara di Gesturi, Genoni, Tuili and Setzu, but you will never be able to get to the bottom of it. Every time, everything is always different, from the reflections on the lake mirrors to the sweet and severe eyes of those "horses", terrible for their cunning and independence, hidden in every ravine of this universe, so nominally known, but still unexplored. Of course, the paths appear to be registered, just as we delude ourselves that everything here is visible and already known. This is not the case, fortunately. In the Giara di Sardegna, the one that overlooks the Marmilla of the Nuragic Palace of Barumini, mysteries emerge even where they are not seen, starting from that interweaving of history and nature, of geological, naturalistic, wild and archaeological conformation that make this "mountain -plain” a secret yet to be revealed.
The Nobel for the Jar
Harold Varmus, Nobel Prize winner for physiology and medicine, American scientist from the famous Lewis Thomas University, Barack Obama's right-hand man in health strategy, did not think twice with his revolutionary scientific journal in publishing the study on " Climbing the Jar " , the "spatial" and interdisciplinary study on the unexplored secrets of this unique naturalistic-archaeological compendium in the world.
From Giara to New York
PLOS One , the world magazine published by the American «Public Library of Science », is not used to disseminating with its eyes closed. The comparison between Davide Schirru and Alessandro Vanzetti, the two researchers from the Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Ancient Sciences, authors of the research on the Gesturi Jar, and Peter F. Biehl, the reviewer in charge of evaluating the publication of the study , it was hard and tight. Biehl, a scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a member of the faculty of the University of Buffalo and the State University of New York, analyzed the analysis of the two researchers point by point, proposed insights and further evaluations. Finally the supreme green light arrived. On July 26, 2023, at 2 pm in New York, the scientific journal announced the end of the "severe embargo" and the publication of the study: "Climbing the Giara: a quantitative reevaluation of movement and visibility in the nuragic landscape of the Gesturi (central-southern Sardinia, Italy)». Thousands of analyses, data and visual buffers, spatial, time and slope analyses, landscape and functions. A crossroads of scientific data, measurable and measured, to reason with open eyes and a long look on archaeological hypotheses relating to this "continent" called Giara. Not an enclave of defense alone, but a set of symbols, strategic and territorial functions. A three hundred and sixty degree examination, capable of interacting with the most modern geo-statistical systems capable of detecting mobility, accessibility and visibility of a place as fascinating as it is complex. It is precisely that nuragic landscape of the Giara, with those 20 nuraghi positioned on the extreme crown of the plateau, examined by the researchers, which represents «an exceptional case for geo-statistical analysis, allowing a discussion of long-standing hypotheses and ideas ».
Unexplored jar
The objective was to analyze the unexplored of the Giara, what cannot be seen, even if you observe it a thousand times, to discover all the possible scenarios of the function of the Nuraghi. A scientific analysis addressed through a multiplicity of landscape approaches. And the archaeological application of highly advanced Gis, Geographic Information System, methods and tools could not fail to start from the «series of nuraghi that crown the plateau of the mesa called Giara di Gesturi, providing a significant case for the study of their relationships with visibility and the movement". And it is precisely this intersection of landscape analyses, between cones of vision and projections on the access roads and on the " scalas " of the plateau that opens up new glimmers of analysis on the treasure chest of the Giara.
Control, but not only
«The context-oriented GIS models - write Schirru and Vanzetti - based on points of view and least cost routes, have brought out a certain correlation between nuraghi and potential movement on the slopes, thanks to the selection of plateau morphologies such as the ridges towards the outside. The nuraghi, however, do not arise exactly in the most accessible points of the plateau. The Nuraghi offered ample visual control, especially at great distances, but not specifically over the nearest accessible routes. This suggests that the function of the nuraghi is somehow connected to defense and visibility, but is not directly explained by the control of the local territory." It is here that the most fascinating scenarios open up, namely the possibility that the function of controlling the territory and the military purpose is only a secondary factor, albeit directly connected to the positioning chosen to build the Nuragic monuments.
Nuragic look
The scholars explicitly state this in their conclusions: «It therefore follows that, while for the Giara nuraghi a certain tendency towards planned defense and control of territories and resources was detected, their interpretation as constructions optimized for defensive or control purposes of the territory is considerably weakened here. Other social and symbolic purposes could therefore explain the existing visual relief attested on the Giara and more generally in Marmilla: the nuraghi could act as a powerful visual declaration of the presence of the community, and of its right to exercise its vital activities, in and around the monument itself." The mystery of the Jar, precisely. With one certainty, the Nuragic people looked into the distance.
