The nuraghe built these huge structures that wouldn't really be rivaled until the middle ages thousands of years later, as well as having complex trade network in the western Mediterranean. I have seen it suggested the Phoenicians, all about that trade, may have even developed from this civilization. Their civilization, like the Egyptians survived the bronze age collapse, and looking at the Mortuary temple of Ramses II and the depiction of the Sea people, they appear to be wearing identical cuirass to those depicted of warriors in the nuraghe civilization.
So why are they not brought up as much as the Greeks, Hittites, Minoans, and Egyptians? Even when the latter did so extensively?
It's like we just forgot about one of the great civilizations from that era.
why are [the nuraghe] not brought up as much as the Greeks, Hittites, Minoans, and Egyptians?
3 comments:
Not specifically addressing your question, still IMHO it's important to say: the term nuraghe is generally used to refer to a specific type of structure, not to the people who built them. For the latter, use terms like Nuragic people or Nuragic civilization.
The Nuragic people seem not to have left any written records. This will always cause a civilization to be deprecated by historians, who are mostly concerned with texts. The Egyptians, Greeks, and Hittites left these in abundance, and they have long been deciphered. One might object that the Minoan texts have not yet been deciphered, so for the purposes of history don't yet exist. However the Minoans have the special advantages of having been the focus of intense study (largely due to attempts to decipher Linear A), of being mentioned by the Greeks (e.g., Homer), and of (probably) being the first Bronze Age civilization in Europe.
The Nuragic people seem to have been spatially limited to Sardinia. While a delightful place, and the 2nd largest island in the Mediterranean, Sardinia is small compared to the spatial range of Egyptians, Greeks, and Hittites. (It is larger than the spatial range of the Minoans, but see Minoan special advantages in previous item.)