the nuraghic civilization had an original sculpture expressed in a large production of bronze statuettes, about 500 of which have been found in nuraghi, temples, houses, and tombs. these figurines represent all classes of the proto-sardinian populations--military chiefs, soldiers, priests, and women, as well as heroes and gods--in what seems to the modern viewer to be an engagingly direct but also sophisticated geometric style. the greatest number of these bronzes are today in the museo archeologico nazionale in cagliari, sardinia. some have been discovered in etruscan tombs of vetulonia and vulci and have been dated to the period extending from the 9th to the 6th century bc.
corsican menhir, or stela, statuary constitutes a group of special interest. the stone is imbued with life by a sculptural art that involves roughing-in of the head, animation of the upper portion of the body, and placement of a few elements of ornamentation or weaponry (sculpted in relief or, more rarely, engraved) on the schematically anthropomorphic image. these primitive statues are masculine and, no doubt, represent family or tribal heads made heroic or divine. this megalithic stela statuary art appears not only on corsica but also in various other countries and regions of the western mediterranean, including spain, sardinia, liguria, and, in southern france, provence, aveyron, hérault, and gard, though to a lesser degree.
the advance of this type of megalithic sculptural art is difficult to follow, but it is clear that these different groups are related, with close affinities existing between the stelae-menhirs of corsica and those of the ligurian coast. such art is everywhere the expression of a patriarchal society seeking to impose on men's vision, massively and not without grandeur, the image of the departed ancestors.
