Narcao

Narcao is a town in the region called Basso Sulcis. It shows evidence of human settlements starting from the pre-Nuragic period: they probably exploited the natural caves present in the surrounding hills.
In the hamlet of Terraseo in the 1970s a Punic temple dedicated to the cult of Demeter and Kore was found. The sanctuary is not connected to a town, configuring itself as an extra-urban place of worship, like many other small temples dedicated to the goddess Demeter.
Demeter is the Greek goddess of the harvest and the fertility of the earth, whose cult was assimilated by the Carthaginians and strategically spread also in Sardinia, an area devoted precisely to agricultural exploitation, where it had great diffusion.
The temple located in Strumpu Bagoi area is built with the typical building technique of the Punic period, i.e. walls with a base of stones cemented with mud mortar.
It was founded at the end of the 4th century BC, but the sanctuary continued to be frequented even in Roman times, as evidenced by the foundation deposit, located under one of the altars and dating back to the Augustan era. Attendance continued until the 3rd century AD.
There are several buildings in the area, oriented to the north. The main temple building was divided into three parts with an external access entrance. There were several altars for sacrifices both inside and outside the main building, with remains of ashes, bones and pig teeth.
The “favissa”, i.e. the sacred deposit, was created inside the penetral altar and mainly contained kernophoroi (small incense burner female busts) and statuettes depicting the goddess Demeter.
Near the temple there was a spring and the area appears to have been frequented already in the Nuragic age.