Monte d'accoddi - Sardinian step pyramid, Italy

Monte d’Accoddi is a pyramid. It is the only pyramid known on Sardinia. It is a large platform pyramid. With a causeway, which is why it is more commonly referred to as a ziggurat. But it also has a menhir (a standing stone). And a dolmen. And a stone sphere. Which makes it even more unique, not just on the island, but the entire Mediterranean Sea, in fact – as too few people have pointed out – in the entire world. For there is no other site in the world that has all of these items all in one place. And that’s what makes Monte d’Accoddi an oop-construction, as it has a bit of everything, but brought together in a manner that no-one else has done as such.

A ziggurat on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia? As strange as it may sound, this is precisely the conclusion – or suggestion – that archaeologists have reached. For the structure of Monte d’Accoddi is not only something that is set apart from anything else found in Sardinia, it is unique in the entire Mediterranean region.
As such, Monte d’Accoddi is an oop-construction, on par with the oop-arts – out of place artefacts – that have generated great interest, and controversy. Situated between the coastal town of Porte Torres and the city of Sassari, the site of Monte d’Accoddi in the northwest part of the largest island of the Mediterranean, is sometimes not even indexed on maps. As such, it doesn’t attract many visitors, despite a very impressive car park, suggesting that when the site was finally fully excavated and opened for tourists, two decades ago, the mass influx of tourists that was expected, never came.

Monte d’Accoddi for some means Monte de Code, “stone mountain”, and for others “mountain with tail”. Whichever one is the correct translation, both are correct in their labelling, as that’s precisely what the construction is: a stone platform pyramid with a ramp. 
The main structure itself resembles, in appearance, the ziggurats of Mesopotamia. A ziggurat had a temple on top – like most Mexican pyramids. It is therefore interesting that Monte d’Accoddi shares more with the ziggurats of Mesopotamia than with Egypt, which is closer and easier to reach (by sea) from Sardinia. 

The mound measures almost 36 by 29 meters, is nine metres high, tapers inwards, with a long – 42 metres – ramp ascending one side to a flat top. It is orientated north-south, thus conforming to the general rule that pyramids are aligned to the cardinal points. Along the ramp, today, a stone sphere is posed on the right hand side where the ascent begins; along the way, to the left, rises an impressive, 4.7 metres tall standing stone (5.75 tonnes heavy), while to the right, is the “altar” stone of a dolmen, measuring 3.15 by 3.20 metres, weighing 8.2 tonnes. Both standing stone and dolmen are typical of the megalithic remains one can find in so many other locations all over Europe – and beyond – as well as elsewhere on Sardinia. The only differentiator is that these stones are somewhat bigger than your average standing stone or dolmen – the standing stone is in fact the second biggest in Sardinia, after the one of Villa Sant’Antonio (Arborea). 

The dolmen differs from many other dolmen because its top surface has a number of cupola – circular indentations – which along the sides are clearly manmade, and enhanced to become little “run-off tunnels”, which run from the top to the side of the stone. 
Why a standing stone and a dolmen would stand on either side of the ramp is impossible to explain, as it is unique to this site. The closest parallel to a standing stone one might find elsewhere in this position, is with the obelisks that often stood at both sides of an entrance into an Egyptian temple. 

The causeway itself leads to one of the platform levels of the pyramid; to reach the upper level of the pyramid, a series of steps needs to be climbed, which are offset from the center, and which give access to the flat surface. At one point, this housed a wooden construction, a veritable temple. Archaeologists speculate that right below, at ground level, is a “cave”, on top of which the entire construction was built. Though the cave is likely to have been man-made, construction-wise, it echoes the reasoning behind the Great Pyramid, which was constructed on top of a natural cave. However, the cave’s existence remains somewhat speculative.

Sardinia’s culture goes back thousands of years, and was rich, as its megalithic remains, from Giant’s tombs to nuraghis (megalithic stone towers), demonstrate. The area around Monte d’Accoddi has a number of necropoleis, some in the near vicinity of the site. This might suggest that this pyramid might be linked with a cult of dead. But if so, the question is why only one pyramid was ever constructed on the entire island. And why it looks so much like a ziggurat, rather than have a more unique nature, or resemble more e.g. the platform pyramids of Tenerife and the not too distant Sicily. It invites speculation, and a conclusion that someone from elsewhere came here, and he or they alone wanted to be buried in such fashion – their tradition – is a tempting answer.

The present construction is dated by some to 2450-1850 BC. However, carbon-dating of three items connected with the second phase of this structure have given a date of 2590 BC. In Sardinia, Mankind was in the Copper Age at that moment in time. But that is just the dating for the structure we see today. It is known that the present construction was built on top of an older, identical but smaller complex. 

In fact, there is evidence that this was a sacred spot as early as 5000 BC. Why that would be so, is hard to tell, but perhaps it has to do with the nearby necropoleis. The ziggurat sits in the middle of a plain, whereby some mountains along the horizon can be discerned, but it is not immediately obvious that these would play an intricate spectacle that would involve the sun or the moon, as one is wont to find when it comes to pyramids and like. Still, Anthony Aveni, with the help of E. Proverbio and G. Romano, has found that Monte d’Accoddi was linked with the observations of the moon. It might explain why the structure was erected here and why the site was deemed to be sacred for centuries before the pyramid construction began.

The original pyramid measured 23.8 by 27.4 metres, and reached a height of 5.4 metres. The upper platform would have measured 12.5 by 7.25 metres, with a ramp that was 5.5 metres wide and 25 metres long. 
After 500 years of use, the structure was therefore enlarged, suggesting its popularity demanded something “more”, but that the alterations did not seriously alter its primary purpose – whatever that precisely was. It is known that the site was inhabited and looked after until after 2000 BC, revealing that a further 500 years of use came out of the improved ziggurat. Still, in use for more than one millennium, it never seems to have been copied elsewhere on the island, suggesting it served a rather unique task. This might mean that no-one else elsewhere on the island was interested in what occurred here, or that the tasks performed here, did not need replication elsewhere. As such, a link with burial practices – which archaeologists have pushed forward for this, like almost all other pyramids – is extremely unlikely.

And why its usage was abandoned, is equally unclear. The next phase of this structure is during the Second World War, when trenches were dug as part of the installation of anti-aircraft batteries, which damaged the construction. In fact, archaeologists, were only let loose on the structure in 1954, initially led by Ercolu Contu (until 1958), with a second series of excavations carried out by Santa Tiné, from 1979 till 1990.

One side of the pyramid reveals how it was built: walls built with great stone blocks lined sections, which were then filled with earth, with another level created by adding another “wall” of stone blocks, each interior one built with slightly larger blocks. 

"Sing,play,dance,grow,harvest,milking,carve,melt,kill,die,singing, playing,dancing was our life. 
Apart from the madness of killing each other for irrelevant reasons, we were happy.
We called ourselves S'ard, which means in our ancient language - the stars dancers."