992, REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 
the director, Dr. Thomas Ashby, and by an architectural draughtsman, 
Myr. F. G. Newton, student of the school. 
Their new observations have materially increased our knowledge of 
the two main groups of Sardinian megalithic monuments, the Nuraghi 
and the ‘ Tombs of the Giants.’ The previous year’s work made it clear 
that the former were fortified habitations. Dr. Mackenzie has now visited 
other examples and recorded variations of type and peculiarities of con- 
struction. The most remarkable is the Nuraghe of Voes in the Bitti dis- 
trict towards the north of Central Sardinia. Triangular in plan, it con- 
tains on the ground floor circular chambers with bee-hive roofs : the usual 
central chamber and one in each of the three angles. The entrance is on 
the south and leads into a small open court with a doorway at each side 
leading to the chamber at the base of the triangle, and another doorway 
straight in front by which the central chamber is entered. There was an 
upper story, now destroyed, reached by a stairway of the usual type. 
Exceptional features are two long curving corridors in the thickness of 
the wall on two sides of the triangle, intended probably as places of con- 
cealment. Above them were others of similar plan, but both series are 
so low that the roof of the upper one is level with that of the bee-hive 
chamber on the ground floor. This skilfully planned stronghold must 
have been built all at one time; other large Nuraghi were originally of 
simpler design, and have grown by the addition of bastions and towers. 
A new type of Nuraghe was discovered at Nossia near the modern 
village of Paulilatino, in Central Sardinia. It is a massive quadrangular 
citadel of irregular rhomboidal plan with a round tower at each corner. 
These towers resemble the stone huts of the villages attached to some of 
the Nuraghi; they are entered from a central court-yard which here 
takes the place of the normal bee-hive chamber. It was partly filled with 
circular huts, so that this Nuraghe must be regarded as a fortified village 
rather than as the castle of a chieftain. 
The dwellers in these Nuraghi buried their dead in family sepulchres 
popularly known as Tombs of the Giants. Several writers had suggested 
that these tombs with their elongated chamber and crescent-shaped front 
were derived from the more ancient dolmen type, but hitherto there was 
little evidence to support this conjecture, only one dolmen being known 
in Sardinia. Dr. Mackenzie has now made this derivation certain; he 
has studied ten important groups of dolmen tombs, most of them entirely 
unknown, which furnish a series of transitional types. In one case the 
chamber of an original dolmen tomb had ati a later period been elongated 
so as to resemble that of a Giant’s Tomb. In another example the large 
covering slab was supported by upright slabs at the sides and back; and 
behind it there are traces of an apse-like enclosing wall, such as is 
characteristic both of the Giants’ Tombs and also of dolmens in certain 
localities where Giants’ Tombs do not exist: for example, in Northern 
Corsica and in Ireland. Dr. Mackenzie also discovered a new type of 
Giant’s Tomb in which the mound was entirely faced with stone, upright 
slabs being used below and polygonal work above. Another feature, 
hitherto unique, is a hidden entrance into the chamber at one side, in 
addition to the usual small hole in the centre of the front through which 
libations and offerings were probably introduced. 
These results were described at a meeting of the British School at 
Rome in March 1909 (see ‘ Atheneeum ’ of March 27). An illustrated 
report of them will appear in Volume V. of the Papers of the School, 
