A Wealth of Temples
Architectural styles from across the Mediterranean marked the construction of Tharros's great temples.
Gallery
Image Carousel with 5 slides
A carousel is a rotating set of images. Use the previous and next buttons to change the displayed slide
-
Slide 1: The base of the "Doric Half-Columns Temple" in Tharros.
-
Slide 2: A Doric half-column ruin at Tharros with an Aeolic-Cypriot half-capital.
-
Slide 3: A mosaic floor featuring the motif called “Solomon’s knot” in the courtyard of the Semitic Temple.
-
Slide 4: In Temple K, the altar was topped by an Egyptian gorge cornice in the Punic style. In the background is the San Giovanni tower.
-
Slide 5: Ruins of columns in the area of the Doric Half-Columns Temple.
Temple Architecture in Tharros
This monumental temple, located in the heart of the city, is an important structure of the Punic period. Scholars believe that it was built starting in the early fifth century B.C.E. The original core of the sacred area—which dates to this period—is a natural rocky outcrop surrounded by a wall of large square stones. During the second phase of the city’s life (fourth to third centuries B.C.E.), the rocky core was a platform that had an access ramp as well as the columns of a Doric pseudo-portico and an Egyptian gorge cornice. In the third phase, during the late Republican or Early Imperial Roman age, the temple was dismantled and some of its architectural elements reused for the foundations of the new Roman temple. The structure was later identified under an Early Imperial Roman floor; it had been largely disassembled and covered with debris.
Just south of the “Doric Half-Columns Temple” stood the “Semitic Temple” (shaped like temples in the Eastern Mediterranean), a quadrangular area dug into the rock. Still visible is the mosaic pavement designed for the central courtyard; the decorative motif is called “Solomon’s knot.” Although the excavation revealed structures from only as far back as the Roman period (third century C.E.), it is assumed that the building had Punic roots, due to the discovery of approximately 200 Punic-era pots inside a nearby well.
While little remains of this structure, it is clear that it had a tripartite sacellum (small chapel) and the bases of two pillars in front of its entrance. It is known as the “Temple of Demeter” because it held artifacts related to the goddess. Again, despite its Roman-era appearance, the original structure can be traced back to the late Punic era.
This temple, which dates back to Roman times, is composed of a basalt staircase leading to a complex that includes a porticoed structure from the Imperial period and a small temple built of squared sandstone blocks. Two stones with Punic inscriptions suggest that this building precedes the Republican period.
Probably dating from the first century B.C.E., this temple too sits atop a preexisting structure. The building consisted of a tetrastyle pronaos (the temple front) with four columns and a cella (the inner rectangular structure). After excavation in the 1950s, two of the columns of the pronaos were reconstructed, and one was topped with a capital in the Corinthian-Italic style.
Photo credits: Temple of Demeter: www.tharros.sardegna.it. • All other images: Archive of the Mont’e Prama Foundation; photo: Nicola Castangia.