Around seven thousand nuraghi survive in various states of conservation across the coastal plains and hills of western Sardinia. They were stone towers with surrounding buildings, mostly built from around 1,800 BC to serve as fortified villages, military strongholds or family compounds - like a miniature version of the fortified towns on mainland Italy from the Etruscans to medieval and Renaissance hilltop towns.
This one, south of Sassari at Torralba, is one of the best preserved and most famous.
