Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the 20 regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia and immediately south of the French island of Corsica.
The nuraghe, or also nurhag in English, is the main type of ancient megalithic edifice found in Sardinia, developed during the Nuragic Age between 1900 and 730 B.C. Today it has come to be the symbol of Sardinia and its distinctive culture known as the Nuragic civilization. More than 7,000 nuraghes have been found, though archeologists believe that originally there were more than 10,000.
Archaeological evidence of prehistoric human settlement on the island of Sardinia is present in the form of nuraghes and other prehistoric monuments, which dot the land. The recorded history of Sardinia begins with its contacts with the various people who sought to dominate western Mediterranean trade in Classical Antiquity: Phoenicians, Punics and Romans. Initially under the political and economic alliance with the Phoenician cities, it was partly conquered by Carthage in the late 6th century BC and then entirely by Rome after the First Punic War. The island was included for centuries in the Roman province of Sardinia and Corsica, which would be incorporated into the diocese of Italia suburbicaria in 3rd and 4th centuries.
The Sherden are one of the several ethnic groups the Sea Peoples were said to be composed of, appearing in fragmentary historical and iconographic records from the Eastern Mediterranean in the late 2nd millennium BC.
The Province of Sardinia and Corsica was an ancient Roman province including the islands of Sardinia and Corsica.
The Corsicans are a Romance ethnic group. They are native to Corsica, a Mediterranean island and a territorial collectivity of France.
The Coracenses were an ancient people of Sardinia, noted by Ptolemy. They dwelt south of the Tibulati and the Corsi and north of the Carenses and the Cunusitani.
The Corsi were an ancient people of Sardinia and Corsica, to which they gave the name, as well as one of the three major groups among which the ancient Sardinians considered themselves divided. Noted by Ptolemy, they dwelt at the extreme north-east of Sardinia, in the region today known as Gallura, near the Tibulati and immediately north of the Coracenses.
The Nuragic civilization, also known as the Nuragic culture, was a civilization or culture on Sardinia (Italy), the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, which lasted from the 18th century BC up to the Roman colonization in 238 BC. Others date the culture as lasting at least until the 2nd century AD and in some areas, namely the Barbagia, to the 6th century AD or possibly even to the 11th century AD.
The Torrean civilization was a Bronze Age megalithic civilization that developed in Southern Corsica, mostly concentrated south of Ajaccio, during the second half of the second millennium BC.
The Sardinians, or Sards, are a Romance language-speaking ethnic group native to Sardinia, from which the western Mediterranean island and autonomous region of Italy derives its name.
Paleo-Sardinian, also known as Proto-Sardinian or Nuragic, is an extinct language, or perhaps set of languages, spoken on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia by the ancient Sardinian population during the Nuragic era. Starting from the Roman conquest with the establishment of a specific province, a process of language shift took place, wherein Latin came slowly to be the only language spoken by the islanders. Paleo-Sardinian is thought to have left traces in the island's onomastics as well as toponyms, which appear to preserve grammatical suffixes, and a number of words in the modern Sardinian language.
The Pre-Nuragic period refers to the prehistory of Sardinia from the Paleolithic until the middle Bronze Age, when the Nuragic civilization flourished on the island.
The Ilienses were an ancient Nuragic people who lived during the Bronze and Iron Ages in central-southern Sardinia, as well as one of the three major groups among which the ancient Sardinians considered themselves divided. After the Sicilian Wars began with the Punic invasion in the sixth century BC, part of them retreated to the mountainous interior of the island, from which they opposed for centuries the foreign rule.
The Beaker culture in Sardinia appeared circa 2100 BC during the last phase of the Chalcolithic period. It initially coexisted with and then replaced the previous Monte Claro culture in Sardinia, developing until the ancient Bronze Age circa 1900–1800 BC. Then, the Beaker culture mixed with the related Bonnanaro culture, considered the first stage of the Nuragic civilization.
The Paleo-Corsican language is an extinct language spoken in Corsica and presumably in the northeastern part of Sardinia by the ancient Corsi populations during the Bronze and Iron Ages. The scanty evidence of the language, which comes mainly from toponymy, would indicate a type of Pre-Indo-European language or, according to others, Indo-European, with Ligurian and Iberian affinity.
Sardinian surnames are surnames with origins from the Sardinian language or a long, identifiable tradition on the Western Mediterranean island of Sardinia.
