Today the monument looks like a stepped pyramid formed of ignimbritic blocks bound with lime mortar, extremely common in local architecture since Punic times.
The interior consists of a vestibule, an antechamber and a large rectangular burial chamber, provided with five niches in the walls and on the back side, sinuous moldings and a ceiling made of double sloping roof.
Closure was ensured through the use of a large, unique and richly decorated circular millstone door made of limestone.
Decorative motifs variously interpreted include the possible depiction of a Hellenistic architectural façade, or the representation of a dakanon symbol linked to the Chthonian cults and in particular to the myth of the Dioscuri twins connected to the cyclic course of life and death.
Over the centuries, both the exterior decorations, the statue or statues of the owners of the tomb, and part of the very core of the construction were gradually removed.
In fact, the tomb must have been prismatic or truncated-pyramidal in shape, decorated with superstructures, inscriptions, and marble or limestone reliefs.
On the basis of its architecture, the structure is generically traced to the type of tower mausoleums: comparisons with turriform mausoleums in North Africa and Roman mausoleums in Italy and the provinces, Sa Presonedda allowed for the identification of an original Roman-era product, the result of Punic and Roman encounter and syncretism in Sulci between the 2nd century B.C. and the 1st century A.D. Only through twentieth-century sources do we know of the existence in Sant’Antioco of a second mausoleum of the same type, located near the coast and destroyed at the beginning of the last century.
The funerary monuments were built and used by eminent members of the Roman Sulci as an emblem of their prestige and social rank.
