The Nuraghe San Pietro is located on a small relief that rises in the middle of a plain of alluvial nature, close to the left bank of the Posada stream, in the locality of the same name in the territory of Torpè, in the province of Nuoro. It is one of the most important prehistoric monuments in the Baronie sub-region
Nuraghe San Pietro has had a very long life: it has been inhabited or used with different functions over nearly two millennia. The oldest part of the nuraghe is certainly the central tower built of trachyte, with sizable boulders that characterize the most archaic Nuragic constructions. Although no precise dating has been made, it can be assumed that the construction of the central keep dates back to the centuries before the middle of the second millennium BCE.
The other four towers were built using a different material, local shale, with far smaller boulders. It should also be noted that the masonry works of these outer towers are not directly connected with the structure of the central tower, but rely on it without becoming part of it. This suggests that their construction occurred only at a later time.
From the stratigraphic analysis of these towers and in particular of the southwest tower, performed by Rubens d’Oriano, it was possible to reconstruct, at least on broad lines, the life of this tower and, by reflection, of the monument as a whole.
In the Archaeological Bulletin compiled following the fifth and final excavation campaign of Orian states:
“A fairly secure stratigraphy was thus found to exist, bearing witness to three main phases of life:
- First use of the compartment;
- time of intense habitation activity and sudden abandonment, datable, perhaps, still within the second millennium BCE.
- Roman occupation of the tower, beginning in the late 1st early 2nd century AD. For technical reasons, the excavation was not continued until the virgin rock was reached, and a continuous plane of stones was revealed, preparation of the overlying floor, below which the archaeological stratification seems to continue.”