Giants' Tombs

Giants' Tombs are a distinctive Bronze Age feature of the Italian island of Sardinia.

Giants' Tomb near the town of Dorgali

The example pictured above, which I visited yesterday on a walking holiday, is one of about 800 on the island.

They were erected by the Nuragic civilisation, which flourished from at least 1700 BC - some sources say 2300 BC - and in parts of Sardinia may have outlasted Roman colonisation.

The Dorgali Giants' Tomb is a relatively sophisticated version in that the central stone or stele, made of granite and weighing more than seven tons, has been carved to give it a rounded top and central crossbar.

Behind the stele is a burial chamber measuring about 11 metres long.

The length of the burial chamber gave rise to the idea that these were graves for exceptionally tall people

In reality they were collective graves where locals were interred over generations.

Reconstruction by graphic artist Daniel Ventura