The Church of San Giovanni di Sinis

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The Church of San Giovanni di Sinis

San Giovanni di Sinis churchThe church of San Giovanni di Sinis is in Cabras, on the coastal road that leads to Tharros’ ruins. It was built on the area that was previously occupied by the phenico-punic necropolis and then by the Christian cemetery, and it’s one of the most ancient churches in Sardinia: it was built during the byzantine period, around the 6th century AD, using sandstone taken from the punic and roman ruins. The church was probably a baptistery.
Its present structure is with three naves covered by barrel vaults, the façade is very simple, without decorations. Some elements that we can see today, among which the body with the cupola, belong to the original structure, whereas others, as the apse, belong to the reshuffle that was made between the 9th and the 11th century: the church in fact had originally a cross structure. On the right of the entrance we have a rare baptismal font with hexagonal plan.

 

 

San Giovanni's Tower

The small hamlet and the church gave the name to the tower of San Giovanni, that is not very far, overlooking Tharros’ ruins. It was built between the 16th and the 17th century by the Spanish, that in this way could supervise the coastline for a range of about 28 Km, and could see from here the other defense towers of the gulf: San Marco, Torre Grande, tower of Marceddì, tower of Capo Frasca, tower of Sevo and Mora. The San Giovanni’s tower is composed by two superimposed cylinders and is second in magnitude only to Torre Grande, with 14,5 meters of diameter and 11 meters of height. It is made of sandstone rocks that were taken from the punic and roman ruins. In the 18th century it had a garrison of a commander, an artilleryman and four soldiers ,and it was controlled until the 19th century, when the embrasures were closed and two brickwork billets were built.

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