"A doorway to the afterlife carved in granite four millennia ago"
Coddu Vecchiu Grave
Alzachèna/Arzachena, Sardinia, Italy
In the Sardinian countryside near Arzachena, a granite stele rises four meters into the sky. Carved into its face is a doorway—not for the living, but for the dead. Coddu Vecchiu is one of approximately 800 Giants' Graves scattered across Sardinia, collective burial monuments built by the Nuragic civilization during the Bronze Age. The door in the stone marked the threshold between worlds. Mourners left offerings at its base.
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Quick Facts
Location
Alzachèna/Arzachena, Sardinia, Italy
Tradition
Site Type
Coordinates
41.0436, 9.3389
Last Updated
Jan 31, 2026
Learn More
Built by the Nuragic civilization in two phases: gallery grave (21st-19th century BCE), transformed with exedra and stele (18th-17th century BCE). Associated with nearby La Prisgiona nuraghe settlement. Excavated 1966.
Origin Story
Between the 21st and 19th centuries BCE, the people of a Bronze Age Sardinian community constructed a gallery grave in the Capichera locality—a covered passageway for their collective dead. Several centuries later, between the 18th and 17th centuries BCE, their descendants transformed the tomb. They added a semicircular exedra of eleven granite stones and erected a central stele exceeding four meters in height. Into this stele they carved a doorway—the symbolic passage between the world of the living and the realm of the dead. The Giants' Tomb of Coddu Vecchiu was complete. Just 700 meters away, the settlement of La Prisgiona would continue to bury its dead here for generations.
Key Figures
Editta Castaldi
Spiritual Lineage
Built by the Nuragic civilization of Bronze Age Sardinia. Artifacts from the Bonnanaro culture (early Nuragic) found during excavation. No descendant tradition preserves the original beliefs.
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