Domus de Janas (
SardinianSardinian is, after Italian, the main language spoken on the island of Sardinia, Italy. It is considered the most conservative of the Romance languages in terms of phonology and is noted for its Paleosardinian substratum....
: "House of the Fairies" or of the "Witches") are a type of pre-historic
chamber tombA chamber tomb is a tomb for burial used in many different cultures. In the case of individual burials, the chamber is thought to signify a higher status for the interree than a simple grave. Built from rock or sometimes wood, the chambers could also serve as places for storage of the dead from one...
s found in the Mediterranean area, but typically in
SardiniaSardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . The area of Sardinia is . The nearest land masses to the island are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Tunisia, and the Spanish Balearic Islands...
. They consist of several chambers quarried out by the Ozieri and Beaker cultures, resembling houses in their layout.
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More than 1000 of the rock-cut tombs are known on the island. They date to the Chalcolithic and
Bronze AgeThe Bronze Age of a culture is the period when the most advanced metalworking in that culture utilised bronze. This could either have been based on the local smelting of copper and tin from ores, or trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere...
.
Domus de Janas (
SardinianSardinian is, after Italian, the main language spoken on the island of Sardinia, Italy. It is considered the most conservative of the Romance languages in terms of phonology and is noted for its Paleosardinian substratum....
: "House of the Fairies" or of the "Witches") are a type of pre-historic
chamber tombA chamber tomb is a tomb for burial used in many different cultures. In the case of individual burials, the chamber is thought to signify a higher status for the interree than a simple grave. Built from rock or sometimes wood, the chambers could also serve as places for storage of the dead from one...
s found in the Mediterranean area, but typically in
SardiniaSardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . The area of Sardinia is . The nearest land masses to the island are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Tunisia, and the Spanish Balearic Islands...
. They consist of several chambers quarried out by the Ozieri and Beaker cultures, resembling houses in their layout.
thumb
More than 1000 of the rock-cut tombs are known on the island. They date to the Chalcolithic and
Bronze AgeThe Bronze Age of a culture is the period when the most advanced metalworking in that culture utilised bronze. This could either have been based on the local smelting of copper and tin from ores, or trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere...
. A necropolis of them at the site of Anghelu Ruju, near
AlgheroAlghero , is a town of about 42,000 inhabitants in Italy. It lies in the province of Sassari in northwestern Sardinia, next to the sea....
, consists of 36 tombs some carved with bulls' heads. Another large site is that of
Sant'Andrea Priu at
BonorvaBonorva is a comune in the Province of Sassari in the Italian region Sardinia, located about 140 km north of Cagliari and about 40 km southeast of Sassari....
, including 18 chambers: during the late Roman and
ByzantineThe word Byzantine may refer to:Topics directly related to the Byzantine Empire* A citizen of The Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...
dominations it was turned into a cave church. Other sites can be found at
PimentelPimentel is a comune in the Province of Cagliari in the Italian region Sardinia, located about 30 km north of Cagliari. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 1,200 and an area of 15.0 km²....
,
SediniSedini is a comune in the Province of Sassari in the Italian region Sardinia, located about 180 km north of Cagliari and about 25 km northeast of Sassari...
,
VillaperuccioVillaperuccio is a comune in the Province of Carbonia-Iglesias in the Italian region Sardinia, located about 40 km southwest of Cagliari and about 13 km southeast of Carbonia...
,
IttiriIttiri is a comune in the Province of Sassari in the Italian region Sardinia, located about 160 km northwest of Cagliari and about 15 km south of Sassari...
and
Porto TorresPorto Torres , is a comune and city in northern Sardinia, in the Province of Sassari.It is situated on the north coast about 25 km east of the Gorditanian promontory , and on the spacious bay of the Golfo dell'Asinara.-History:In ancient times, Turris Libyssonis was one of the most...
.
The shape of grottoes can vary from that of a rounded hut with conical or triangular ceiling. The walls are often decorated with magical reliefs. The corpses, painted with red
ochreOchre or Ocher is term for both a golden-yellow or light yellow brown color and for a form of earth pigment which produces the color. The pigment can also be used to create a reddish tint known as Red ochre. The more rarely used terms Purple ochre and Brown ochre also exist for variant hues...
like the tomb's walls, were buried together with common life objects, jewels and tools. According to archaeologist Giovanni Lilliu, they were buried under shells of molluscs; according to other theories, they were left outside the tomb, being put inside only after they had reduced to a skeleton.