di Alessandra Pilloni
Adapted from Marija Gimbutas - Twenty years of Goddess study - Proceedings of the conference of the same name – Rome 9-10 May 2014 – Laima Editorial Project – Turin
Goni is a very small town in the province of Cagliari, in that area of Sardinia which takes the name of Gerrei. On a plateau of about 500 m. on the sea extends a forest of cork oaks alternating with pastures; a territory with a pastoral vocation still today, where there is a beautiful prehistoric archaeological park of about 20 hectares.
An immense funerary and religious area dating back to 3200-2800 PEC and built by the populations who in Sardinia belong to the Neolithic Culture of Ozieri-Sub Ozieri. It was excavated by Prof. Enrico Atzeni since the 80s and has returned interesting ceramic and lithic materials. Imposing hypogean and epigean tombs follow one another along country paths that enter the vegetation: a necropolis that must have been important for the nearby villages in the area, given the vastness of the area and the particularity of the monuments.
Simple populations who lived in huts near the springs and practiced breeding and agriculture: they devoted wonderful efforts and constructive energies to the cult of their ancestors, which have allowed the preservation of those ancient vestiges up to the present day. In fact, here a moment of essential passage for the communities was celebrated, that of death in its cyclical alternation and in its intrinsic regenerative value for all of nature; the link with the ancestors maintained the thread of continuity and strengthened the bonds with the territory and with the other inhabitants, making the human passage on the plateau evident and profound.
The tombs represent an important moment of passage between hypogealism and epigeal megalithism, mixing and influencing each other in forms that are often more unique than rare. Facing east and south towards the points of greatest light, they mostly follow a general plan characterized as follows: concentric circles of stones to form the support of the tumulus above, an entrance corridor for access and funeral rooms in the centre. The tumulus roof must have made these monuments perfectly inserted and compatible with the surrounding environment, as shown by still intact examples of Northern European burials in which spontaneous vegetation covered the artificial hills, integrating them perfectly into the landscape.
These are epigeic funerary typologies quite rare at the time in Sardinia, at least compared to the more usual ones house of janas (fairy houses) of which there are thousands of specimens throughout the island. As Marija Gimbutas hypothesized, it is easy to imagine in them a uterine call in the general form, with a corridor entrance that led to the circular swelling of the belly, where the deceased actually returned for eternal rest. On the other hand, we find ourselves in a cultural context marked by the adoration of the Goddess (idols and rock art and ceramics are a wonderful example) and characterized by a maternal cosmogony in which life and death represent two extremes that touch and merge in the mystery of the female and underground womb.
This is why we find in the park area one of the largest Sardinian menhir finds, about 60 specimens still visible. Made of local sandstone, of the aniconic and proto-anthropomorphic type, they fit fully into the context of fertility religious beliefs and demonstrate the importance attributed to the vital and regenerative factor of sexual energies.
Today it is difficult to imagine the presence of symbols of a sexual nature in a cemetery context, but at the time we are talking about, the two aspects appeared inextricably linked in the spiral of life, a symbol widely used in the rock art of house of janas. In pairs, in groups, isolated or in alignment, these ancient presences mark the landscape and watch over the peace of the ancestors, handing down their memory over time.
On some menhirs it is possible to identify some cup marks, frequent in this type of monument: trace of a ritual pilgrimage, container of offerings or drawing of precise constellations. In any case, the small lenticular cavities mark the passage of someone who wanted to leave his mark on the sacred stone. Even today it is not difficult to see men and women seeking physical and direct contact with the menhirs in an attempt to absorb their energy, power, fertility in a continuum that amazes for its persistence and popular roots.
There are also the most typical ones house of janas, the artificial hypogeal cells dug into the natural rocks and rocky ridges: here they are in a very simple form, single or two-celled with vertical opening or cockpit entrance. In the rocky ridge where the burials open dominating the entire surrounding area, some swear they see an enormous anthropomorphic protome that would reproduce the face of the Mother Goddess in the rock, characterized by the horizontal element of the eyebrow arch and that vertical of the nose, as it is represented in the much more documented little idols (Marcello Cabriolu's hypothesis).
Le domus tend to reproduce the environment of the house and manifest in their very underground nature the concept of uterine hospitality, the door to the underworld that opens towards a mysterious chthonic reality, capable of generating new life in the darkness of the subsoil and in the dark cavities of the underworld. There domus it is dark and positive like fertile humus, often in other contexts colored internally with red ocher, like the blood that accompanies birth and death. Some even argue in some cases a possible link between house of janas and nearby water sources, hypothesizing that they should have been deliberately filled with that symbolic amniotic liquid through slopes and channels. And indeed the park seems to sing the praises of the Goddess also in its naturalistic aspect, in the wonderful variety of animal and plant species that populate it according to the seasons: woodpeckers and jays fly freely from one oak to another, wild orchids, daffodils, mushrooms and asparagus amaze with their variety and richness.
They say that Pranu Muttedu means myrtle plateau and when the wind blows the scent of the Mediterranean scrub helps to create that magical and evocative atmosphere capable of connecting with everything and deeply regenerating.
Alessandra Pilloni
Adapted from Marija Gimbutas - Twenty years of Goddess study - Proceedings of the conference of the same name – Rome 9-10 May 2014 – Laima Editorial Project – Turin