Tharros, Capo San Marco
Beowulf
Tom Fenton and Faith Ressmeyer
Mon 26 May 2014 19:37
We weren't anchored quite as close to these Phoenician-Carthiginian-Roman ruins as this yacht but we found a secure mooring, rowed to a fisherman's hut, walked half a mile and found ourselves yet again in an historical wonderland.
Streets still paved with basalt ashlars (and archaeologists know which the market street was because of all the coins found there), four-room for four-temperature Roman baths with changing rooms even, the Senate building, a temple large and a temple small and beneath the Roman, the vestiges not just of the Punic and Phoenician cities which thrived on this isthmus on Sardinia's west coast, but of the 'pre-historical' Nuraghic culture about whom very little is known except that they built chambers with very thick walls and these became more sophisticated as they progressed. Finally, they cast beautiful bronze figurines which we hope to see in a museum in Cagliari later this week.
The columns you can see in the photo are the only 'restored' bit but one is topped by a genuine Roman capital.
Spent a safe, gently rocking night and woke this morning, Monday, to warmer air and bluer skies. But not much wind.
