Location
Nora is located on the promontory of Cape Pula which looks out over the sea and forms a small peninsula connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. This peninsula ends with two tips pointing in the direction of the sea; the southern tip called Punta e su coloru and the eastern point Punta di Coltellazzo, where the small island of Coltellazzo is located.
Punic Tophet
It's located on the isthmus that unites the peninsula to the mainland and was uncovered by a stormy sea in 1889, landing on the beach behind the present-day church of Sant'Efisio, slightly before the isthmus' attachment to the mainland.
The first excavators' report describes a narrow coastal area where more than 200 clay urns, indicated by stele in the sand, were found. Today the tombs, for the most part well-type with the deposition cella beneath, can be seen in part since the collapsing of both rocky embankments' external walls, the result of centuries of marina erosion.
The artefacts found have been dated between the VII and IV centuries B.C.
Funerary Stele
85 depicted stele have been found in the Tophet.
The type constantly produced was that of the aedicule kind. Inside, divine symbols, rarely people, are depicted and have been dated back to the VI and IV centuries B.C.
With respect to African examples, the characters appearing on the stele from Nora are an archaic production, with some of their own modest development, as they had never undergone Greek influence.
On the whole, Nora presents itself, within the context of Punic Sardinia, as a provincial centre that depends on the more characteristic manifestations originating in Carthage and the Orient.
The Dwelling
Found near Market Square are the remains of dwellings, composed of small, square or rectangular areas with clay floors and enclaves at the bottom of the walls where amphora were placed. The walls were generally constructed using frames and big parallelepiped blocks used in regular intervals; the intermediary spaces were filled with minute stones cemented together with mud mortar.
The dwellings have two communicating rooms or many rooms around a central one. Some of the houses are built with a typically-shaped water reserve; the so called bathtub-style because they are long and the narrower edges are rounded.
The Roman Conquest
With the Roman conquest in 238 B.C., the first governing body appeared. A large quantity of milestones confirm the city's importance along with a series of richly built villas, Necropolises and villages.
Roman Urban Planning
The pre-existing Punic styled dwelling had little influence on urbanization during the Roman epoch. The Romans undertook big construction projects in line with massive urban renewal including roads, buildings and public areas like the theatre and the forum and demolishing the previous buildings.
The buildings that dominated the landscape were the following:
• the theatre constructed in the Augustan age
• the sea baths constructed between the end of the II and the beginning of the III centuries A.D.
Not much of the buildings remains as their base was built with stone and the upper part with air-dried bricks.
The public buildings were constructed with cement and finished with bricks or large stone blocks as in the case of the theatre.
Nora's Importance
Nora was one of the main cities in Roman Sardinia and probably the headquarters of the province's governor before Cagliari. One of its most important periods of development took place during the III A.D. when in all likelihood a unifying project included the construction of sea baths, insula A (large area in front of the baths with shops and other zones located around a courtyard) and many buildings, all enriched with mosaic floors.
Nora in the years following
A new construction era during the Vandalic Age, between 450 and 550 A.D., partially reutilizes the existing, deteriorating structures.
A slow decline begins in the Byzantine period in which urbanization begins to disappear and the city transforms itself into an agglomerate of small, inhabited nuclei, separated from each other. Between the VII and VIII centuries A.D., Nora is completely abandoned by its inhabitants and the remaining traces of use are attributed to agriculture and animal herding.
