| While bicycle touring Sardinia
we came across this thirty-five hundred-year-old nuraghic
ruin known as the Nuraghe Palace of Santu Antine. At forty
feet tall it is the largest of the more than seven thousand beehive-shaped
fortresses on Sardinia (for scale, notice Sharon in the yellow
windbreaker). I marvelled that nothing but rock, gravity, and
sheer brute force had been used in its centuries old construction.
Even more amazing was that the whole complex hadn't collapsed
like a weighty house of cards. Circular tunnels (so low they
forced me to stoop), ran the structure's perimeter. At various
points, intersecting hallways led into the main part of the nuraghe.
We followed one, and found there were three levels of dome-shaped
rooms. Continuing through dim passageways, winding this way and
that, we reached the top of the nuraghe. From our vantage
point we surveyed the immense rocks making up the palace. How
had they managed to lift such giant boulders into place? And
they all fitted together like some mammoth three-dimensional
puzzle. I frowned. Some of the lower boulders had cracked from
the tremendous weight of the upper levels. Going back inside
was a trifle disconcerting. "One little pebble"
kept repeating in my head. |
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