TOPOGRAPHICAL AND ASTRONOMICAL ANALYSIS ON THE NEOLITHIC “ALTAR” OF MONTE D’ACCODDI IN SARDINIA

Abstract

The pre‐historic ‘altar’ of Monte d’Accoddi near Sassari, Sardinia is a unique mo‐ nument in the whole Mediterranean area. It is indeed a huge ʺpyramidʺ constructed out of cyclopean masonry, but it exhibits a monumental access ramp similar to the Mesopotamian Ziggurats. The monument is extremely ancient since its first phases of construc‐ tion date back to 3200 BC; it is usually interpreted as a sacred center perhaps devoted to the  ʺMother Earthʺ. Although pretty little is known about pre‐nuragic religion, astronomical alignments have been documented in contemporary sites in Sardinia. There‐ fore, with the aim of contributing to the interpretation of such a unique construction, we have carried out a new, complete archaeoastronomical survey of this monument and its annexes, which is presented here. It turns out that, the presence of astronomical refer‐ ences at the site becomes apparent if the alignments defined by the menhirs located in the fields nearby are analyzed. Indeed, there exists convincing evidence that, from the summit of the platform, lines of sight at the eastern horizon guided by a white limestone menhir and by a reddish stone menhir located at some two hundreds meters from the monument framed the rising of the Sun at winter solstice, pointing to the rising of Sirius and to the southern extreme declination of Venus respectively, while the same menhirs were likely used as backsights for the standstills of the Moon as observed from the east‐ ern corners of the monument.