Children of the rebellious soul, heirs of the great "nuragic" school of Sardus Pater, the father of the immense Civilization of the Sardinian People, Giovanni Lilliu. If there are two protagonists who embody the great "master" through studies, symbiosis and character, they are Giovanni Ugas and Momo Zucca, his favorite students. A parallel history of acquaintances, of enlightened visions, of comparative analyzes between the Nuragic hinterland and the role of the ancient Sardinians in the wider Mediterranean. From the Giants of Mont'e Prama to the vestiges of the great palace of Barumini, they are always there: during and after the advent of Giovanni Lilliu in Sardinian archaeological history. Sedate and frank, always allergic to the impositions of Rome, extreme defenders of the identity of the Sardinian people, university professors, with an authoritative past in the rooms of the State Superintendencies.

Declaration of war

When they "pick up" the pen they know how and where to point it. Words are chained balls, as if they could not witness one more day of the great havoc that threatens the great Nuragic Civilization. They touched a raw nerve: the largest megalithic work ever excavated by their master, that monumental Nuragic Palace of Barumini which became the first Sardinian flag of the World Heritage Site. The sentence of the Regional Administrative Court of Sardinia, forced to take note of the State's negligence regarding the disfigurement of an industrial settlement of agrivoltaic panels between the large nuraghe, the castle of Las Plassas and the nuraghe of Turriga, was the classic straw that broke the camel's back . A Chinese silicon settlement ready to stand out in that landscape only because the Italian state forgot to recognize the archaeological interest of the Turriga nuraghe, positioned for 3,500 years just 236 meters from that recently authorized massacre of 24 hectares of mirrors and steel from stick in the most fertile agricultural lands of the Marmilla. The anger overflows, like a river in flood: «In Sardinia, thousands of Sardinian archaeological assets are known and documented (nuraghi, menhirs, giants' tombs, pre-nuragic burial hypogea called domus de janas , necropolises and settlements of historical age) not subject to restrictions of ministerial protection, but, where they are in private property, they do not exist for the Italian Republic, as if the communities were not part of the Republic itself and were not witnesses to it! Thus, thousands of domus de janas and nuraghi cannot be protected and valorised just because the Italian Republic has not yet formally recognized them through the declaration of cultural interest". An absence of protection that makes one cry sacrilege: "These testimonies of the past they are motherless girls, res nullius at everyone's mercy , yet they have the same characteristics as archaeological assets subject to protection by law: antiquity, being architectural and historical monuments, instruments of identity of a place, part of the landscape and they belong only to the private individual on whose land it exists, but to the whole community, as stated in the Faro Convention".

The forgetful state

The accusation of Ugas and Zucca is detailed: «The Ministry of Cultural Heritage, through the Regional Secretariat, is not able, due to its own deficiency (atavic lack of suitable personnel and adequate resources of the Superintendencies), to issue the numerous protection constraints of the necessary cultural assets in a region like Sardinia characterized by one of the highest incidences of archaeological assets (including monumental ones) in the entire Mediterranean. The State is burdening the Island with this serious shortcoming by not recognizing thousands of archaeological assets already known to the community." A failure to provide archaeological protection by the State could generate unprecedented devastation: «the Pnrr as it is set up is not seen as an economic support for Sardinia, but as a new form of state servitude, with many Sardinians expropriated from their their lands . which, in a more general context, for the entire economy of the vast areas involved". They don't tell speculators and supporters in the palaces of politics: «It is clear that this plan of the Pnrr appears far worse than the well-known cathedrals in the desert, which the island has had to endure for several decades with an independent industrial economic strategy from the territory".

Moral rebellion

That of the two heirs of Giovanni Lilliu is a moral and identity rebellion: «We cannot fail to point out that instead of supporting economic activities in serious crisis, which are basic and respectful of the environment, agriculture, sheep farming, craftsmanship and commerce, in addition to air, sea and land connections, which are essential supports for the development of the island's economy, the State tends to implement a nefarious and completely out of place energy policy, essentially a new, insidious servitude, in addition to the military ones". The path that the two university professors trace is without reservations: «there is a need to reduce the number, extension and power of these plants in congruity with the economic and cultural situation of the Island, and therefore to decisively eliminate the Tyrrhenian Link, i.e. the fundamental support of this enormously oversized and alien energy plan". The questions raised by the researchers are a bitter observation: "What improvement in living conditions can derive from the Pnrr if the beneficiaries of the works intends to create in Sardinia, are not its inhabitants, but external subjects? What protection is there for the island's identity, if so many of its cultural assets, its naturalistic and landscape values will be rendered unusable for decades by this plan? , there is also a call to projects that could safeguard this immense heritage once and for all: «The Pnrr funding could have been used in a more appropriate way to enhance the identity assets of the Island, first of all to put an end to the serious deficiency of the Sardinian Superintendencies in the field of constraints". Giovanni Ugas and Momo Zucca « Errare humanum est, perseverare diabolicum »: «The State and the Sardinian Region should correct their mistakes by reconsidering the real economic, cultural and landscape situation of the island The State made a serious mistake by bringing its army into the Pratobello region in Orgosolo and retraced its steps: now it must have the courage and common sense to do the same. The Sardinians cannot accept a new policy of cathedrals in the desert, in even worse forms. The beauty of our island is not only given by its coasts, admired by summer holidaymakers, but also and above all by the extraordinary morphological variety of its internal territory and its archaeological and landscape assets; it is an inestimable and indispensable identity and economic value for the Sardinians and no sacrilegious action must attack it, much less on the part of those who govern us".

Criminal offence

Last reminder, this time also criminal: «The bodies of the Italian Republic cannot authorize interventions that involve the circumstances of the art. 733 of the Penal Code: « Whoever destroys, deteriorates or in any case damages a monument or another property whose significant value is known to him, is punished, if the act causes damage to the national archaeological, historical or artistic heritage, with the arrest ". The message is strong, clear and without appeal: those who destroy Sardinia must be prosecuted, even criminally.

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