Between 1500 and 1400 BC the first huts of the village were built.

Around 1200 BC the cult buildings were constructed.

Between the 9th and 6th century BC the site kept changing: new rooms were added to the cult buildings and dwelling and craft blocks developed.

Between the 6th and 5th century BC some sectors were abandoned or reorganised, while frequentation continued at least until the early 5th century BC. Later traces document presence in Roman times.

THE FIRST SETTLEMENT

The first settlement lies in the highest part of the hill, with huts arranged irregularly and partly built against granite outcrops.

THE TEMPLES

The focus of the sacred area is two megaron temples with rectangular plans. Both have, in front of the entrance, a ceremonial enclosure with benches for welcoming pilgrims.

Inside the larger temple, Megaron 1, are stone bases and remains of votive swords testifying to offerings; channels conveyed outside the water used in rituals.

Megaron 2, smaller, has an apsidal end and preserves an altar with a hearth reproducing in symbolic form the upper part of a Nuragic tower.

THE VILLAGE AND THE INSULAE

Besides the temples, the village included insulae, groups of rooms arranged around a central space.

Insula 2 had twelve rooms; excavations identified three large metal hoards there, totalling over 500 kilograms: tools, weapons, ornaments, votive bronzes, fragments for remelting and raw materials.

THE METALWORKING WORKSHOPS

A building with ventilation ducts must have been a casting facility. Workshops with furnaces for melting lead and recovering metal from votive offerings were present; near Megaron 1 are two circular structures interpreted as furnaces.

COLLECTIVE SPACES

S’Arcu ’e is Forros is one of the Sardinian Nuragic villages with wide stone benches, able to accommodate hundreds of people.

The complex testifies to a community able to integrate religious practices, craft production, metal accumulation and links with Mediterranean exchange networks.

Casting moulds and tongs, together with metalworking structures, testify to the production of bronze and lead and later of iron.

Objects of Greek or Magna Graecia, Levantine and Etruscan-Italic origin appeared at the site, together with amphorae and exotic objects.

Investigations have taken place over several campaigns; much of the settlement remains to be excavated.

Maria Ausilia Fadda, Villagrande Strisaili. Il villaggio santuario di S’Arcu ’e is Forros, 2012.

Gianfranca Salis, Matteo Tatti, Gli interventi 2016-2017 nel sito di S’Arcu ’e is Forros, 2021.

La Sardegna nuragica. Storia e monumenti, site entry.

SardegnaCultura; SardegnaTurismo; UNESCO Tentative List.

The name S’Arcu ’e is Forros can be translated as “the pass of the furnaces”: in Sardinian arcu is a saddle or mountain pass, forru means “furnace”.

The reference is suggestive in a place where excavations have revealed many metalworking structures, but sources do not establish with certainty that the toponym derives from the ancient furnaces.