Corpo Pagina
The last episode of the stories from the Museum is dedicated to the finds from the site of Monte Sirai, built as a Phoenician settlement at the end of the 8th century BC, on the low plateau in front of today’s city of Carbonia.
During the Carthaginian domination of Sardinia, Monte Sirai experienced a phase of growth and was also equipped with a circle of walls.
The houses built on the plateau were organized in orderly and parallel neighborhoods. The building technique is typical of the Punic period (opus africanum): stone plinth, unbaked brick walls and perishable material roof.
The tophet, the sacred outdoor area, well separated from the town and the necropolis, present in many Phoenician-Punic cities of the Western Mediterranean, should also be referred to the Punic age.
The tophet of Monte Sirai is organized into two terraces connected by a ramp: the lower terrace houses the urns containing the ashes of children and small sacrificed animals, while on the upper level there is a small chapel.
In the city necropolis, the prevailing funerary ritual in this period becomes the infusion inside hypogean chamber tombs with access corridor.
The display case contains the equipment of one of these burials, tomb 11, which housed numerous depositions over a fairly long period of time. Inside, over a hundred objects referring to different periods were found. The oldest are the Greek-oriental amphora and cup, dating back to the 6th century BC, while the black-painted Attic cups and the 4th century Etruscan jug with a foil mouth belong to the 4th century.
The local Punic pottery is characterized by smooth red surfaces, on which in some cases a particular overpainted white decoration with eyes and other ornamental motifs is spread.
