Muttas Nieddas represents one of more than twenty localities in the territory of Gesico that have yielded evidence from the Nuragic period. The site under consideration is located about 2.50 km west/northwest from the western outskirts of the town, north of the dirt road leading to Villanovafranca. Approximately 200 meters south of the nuraghe Muttas Nieddas, located in a dominant position and from which the tombs take their name, stand the remains of at least four (perhaps five) tombs of giants of the row type. These burials, of the collective type, all have a north-south orientation, with the entrance facing south. This situation was certainly conditioned by the steeply sloping terrain. The feature that makes them particularly interesting and almost unique is the total absence, in front of the entrance, of the exedra, the semicircular space intended for ceremonial purposes that is usually always present in the tombs of giants. The four best-observable tombs, which are a few tens of meters apart, were the subject of systematic excavations directed by the Cagliari Archaeological Superintendence in 2006. On that occasion the burial chambers were cleaned and highlighted, within which the bone remains of various inhumates were found. These burial chambers are made of slabs of local limestone arranged in rows progressively more and more projecting upward. When the two walls had ended up coming close enough together, the roof was obtained by means of a series of slabs that acted as lintels, giving the chamber section a truncated-ogival profile (an indication of relative archaicness within this typology). The burial chambers, which tended to narrow slightly
at the bottom, also had a floor, again made of large limestone slabs. The roof resembled an inverted ship’s keel. This typology, so unusual in Sardinia, finds surprising parallels with the navetas, similar burial monuments of the Talayotic civilization found in the Balearic Islands, especially in Menorca.
