Sardinia, the Giants and the Big Wave theory
Pauli Arborei, between myth and ancient tales, testimonies on suspected bone findings
In a distant time far away from us, at the time of the mighty towers of the Nuraghi and the ships that sailed the sea to go to shores with exotic names, lived in Sardinia a civilization of worshipers of the stars and the moon.
Some of the persons were giants.
They lived in cities surrounded by rivers and canals swept away and submerged by a gigantic wave arriving from the sea...
According to some legends ten thousand years ago lived in a Sardinian's city a king with ten court ladies and a fleet of twelve hundred ships. In the same city also lived some hominis mannus (huge men, giants) who no one could touch. Then one day the catastrophe happens. What was once a large lake with navigable canals down to the sea became just a swamp of water (and the actual name Pauli Arbarei could really mean this).
The big wave that submerged the south of the Sardinian island annihilating a great civilization is called "sa unda manna (the great wave)". After the event the city remained sacred in everyone's memory and could not and should not be violated.
Instead... every now and then huge bones popped up from the fields, many, big, huge.
Sardinia is like a little Macondo where time seems to have slowed down. Clean and narrow streets, where ancient wooden portals parade, we can imagine gardens lush with herbs and scented with orange trees. Everywhere, in the air, the pungent smell of fires lit inside the paths. Where a calm and peaceful silence seems to envelop secrets hidden in the hearts of men like a soft blanket.
Many Sardinian legends have been collected in a book, «The people of giants», which far from being a volume with the hallmark of scientificity, collects stories, doubts and questions without answers and is in fact a beautiful encounter between myth and popular account.
Many agree in saying that the Giants of whom hypothetical bones, strange teeth or huge remains belong are from a civilization erased by "sa unda manna" that lived in the now forgotten city and that left no other traces than the nuraghe and bronze ships of Urel of Mu.
In the plateau above the town of Pauli Arbarei there are numerous traces of sites that perhaps should be studied and better protected.
Buried nuraghi, ruined cyclopean boulders, shards and even large and heavy iron rings which they say were used for mooring ships are recovered from time to time.
ORAL TRADITIONS MUST BE LISTENED
Interview with the journalist Sergio Frau
Digging into timeless legends, even among the old men of Pauli Arbarei who recall stories of giants and sailor peoples, the echo of a great wave which from the sea erased a civilization returns. You were the first to hypothesize different scenarios for the history of Sardinia, as described in your book «Le Colonne d'Ercole, an investigation». What do you think of this relic of popular traditions?
I don't want to take credit from others... especially about Platone: he was the first to talk about it. In my book I simply verbalized his words, those of Homer and what the Memory of the Ancients of the East - in Greece, in Egypt - had preserved regarding an astonishing and very rich Western Island beyond the first "Heir Columns, in Homer's Ocean: here with us, then! The same stories say that around the 12th century BC the island was hit by terrible marine cataclysms that wounded it death. Giovanni Lilliu's excavation notebooks (in which he tells of when he removed 30 meters of mud from his Barumini) and a look to the many nuraghi under the mud on the plain convinced me that oral traditions must be listened to and verified with respect and attention. After all, by now, high-level anthropology does it everywhere..."
What should we do to find further clues that can give scientific support to these stories?
"There is nothing better than combining rigor in the search for testimonial sources with well-conducted geological analysis campaigns. Sometimes it's enough just to put aside pre-judgments and think with a calm mind...".
There is still much to discover in the underground of the island. Is it so much so that we have to rewrite the history of our people?
"In my opinion the first history of Sardinia has already been written: it is the one Homer, Ramses III, with the Shardana on the walls of Medinet Habu tell us. Lilliu rightly advised himself not to dig so much anymore! There are now too many wonders locked up in boxes for years. Let's tidy those up first! And, rather, let's try to understand what really happened to our territory: why does Losa and thousands of other nuraghi seem like they were built yesterday? And why do we find hundreds of other nuraghi buried in mud in the plains? Once I finished the book, I gave it to Mario Tozzi, a CNR geologist who I respected but didn't yet know: it was he who confirmed many of the suspicions I had. And now - in the new catalog of the Atlantikà exhibition: Sardinia, Isola Mito - there are dozens and dozens of photos, taken by Francesco Cubeddu with his paramotor: all those nuraghi of Sinis and Campidano, buried like fallen giants, are heartbreaking. Anyone will be able to judge and think about it: only if he wants to think about it, obviously...".
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