The legend says that when God created land and sea, he flung the last boulder into the sea and trod on it. Then he decorated it with some colours and a little bit of the best things he was using to create the other places and he completed... Sardinia.
This is the fairy story to explain why the island that looks like a footprint was called Ichnusa by the Greeks – ichnos means trace, footmark - and why it seems to be a little continent.
It contains in fact many types of landscape - green meadows, colourful flowers, emerald sea, white beaches, mountains and deep valleys.
Sardinian history starts back in the pre-Christian era but the island has been inhabited since Stone Age. Some of the ancient evidences are the tombs carved into the rocks called domus de janas or fairies‘ houses of the witches‘ houses. A fine example is Anghelu Ruju near Alghero, but there are many others in more hidden places.
The most evocative monuments are anyway the nuraghes. They are a kind of megalithic, tower shaped fortresses made of huge superimposed stone blocks.
Still nowadays we have in Sardinia the remains of about 7000 nuraghes built during the second millennium B.C. which is the most important period of the development of the nuragic civilization .
In Barumini, su Nuraxi village is inscribed in the Unesco World Heritage List.
Sometimes close to the nuraghes we may find the giants’ tombs – whose modern name has to do with the size of the burial.
The nuragic civilization was in contact with other Mediterranean civilizations – such as the Phoenicians whose earliest findings on the island date back to the 8th century. Soon after Carthaginians and Romans settled down here.
The Romans left many interesting traces in Sardinia: among others the amphitheatre in Cagliari, some towns, bridges, aqueducts and the archaeological museum in Olbia exhibits some parts Roman ships.
After a short domination by the Vandals leaving from the African coasts it was the turn of the Byzantine empire.
During Roman period and even during Saracen raids the Sardinians moved into the hinterland for safety.
Since 705 and for the following centuries the Sarracins threatened the western and south western coasts of Sardinia. The struggle was long and difficult as Sardinia was marking a sort of boundary between the Christian and Muslim world in the Maditerranean sea
Gradually the island passed from the Byzantine domination to the formation of four local administrative units called giudicati that we could name kingdoms ( about 11th – 14th century). During this important period also women played an important role in the political life. Just to name some of them: Adelasia of Torres, Elena of Gallura, Eleonora of Arborea. Nevertheless battles against new invaders did not stop, let’s mention the Pisans and the Genoeses.
On the North western coastline the influence of the Catalans was also very strong. In Alghero the dialect spoken nowadays is similar to the language spoken in the past during the Aragon domination.
Magnificent Romanesque churches built since the 11th century are a very important cultural heritage from the Middle Age i.e. Trinità di Saccargia in Codrongianus and San Pietro di Sorres church Borutta – These two magnificent churches built with white limestone and black basalt blocks remind the Pisan Romanesque architecture. Also the Catalans built here some fine examples of their gothic architecture: The Shrine of Bonaria in Cagliari or some monuments in Alghero historical centre.
In 1324 the Aragon domination created the Kingdom of Sardinia that survived until 1861 when the ruling House of Savoy became the royal family of the newborn Kingdom of Italy.
Although the island has been occupied many times by foreign conquerors, Sardinian people are very proud of their traditions and their idiom and managed thanks to a regional law to recognize Sardinian as the official language together with Italian.
Nowadays Sardinia is an autonomous region of Italy with an economy that relies more and more on the tourist offer thanks to its historical heritage and natural landscape.
However traditional jobs related to agriculture or sheep, caws and pigs breeding still play a a very important role.
Pecorino cheese or excellent wines like Sella & Mosca, Argiolas and others are exported worldwide.
There are also some high-tech services: Tiscali telephone company, SRT Sardinian radio telescope in San Basilio, DNA researches on some native people to discover more about long life expectance of the Sardinians living in villages of the “Blue Zone”.