La grotta del “Bagno Penale” a Cagliari (Sardegna, Italia): arte preistorica e paesaggio

The Bagno Penale cave is a limestone partially collapsed cavity, noted in archaeological literature since the early years of the 20th century, when the archaeologist Antonio Taramelli found and dug it. This cave gave back a large amount of pottery fragments and a well-knowned two-handled globular bowl with a distinct neck, decorated with incised and impressed geometric motifs; this bowl belongs to Bonu Ighinu culture (Middle Neolithic A: 4800-4300 BC). The southern and intact preserved part of the cave shows some hard-to-understand prehistorical engraved and painted figures. These cave paintings, unfortunately difficult to read, degraded over time also due to direct exposure to atmospheric agents, have been studied through photogrammetric techniques, using the "D-Stretch" software. The Bagno Penale cave is located near the modern urban area of Cagliari, in the middle of “Gulf of the Angels”, a large bay in southern Sardinia (Italy), facing the Tyrrhenian Sea. More precisely, this cave is located on the northern part of “Capo San’Elia” in Cagliari, a sedimentary rock promontory from the Miocene period. This promontory reveals traces of human presence since VI millennium BC, thanks to a well disposed habitat for prehistorical population, located near the sea and the Campidano big plain. The Bagno Penale cave is an excellent case study for GIS analysis related to cave-to-neighbouring area relationship, due to its ubication, its prehistorical figures and the rich archaeological background. The aim is to understand if the choice made by the Neolithic populations to use, for essentially burial and cultural purposes, the Bagno Penale cave, in an area very rich in karst cavities, has been carried out also taking into account the environment surrounding. In fact, this cave is located in a position that allows an excellent visual dominion both on the hilly area currently occupied by today's city of Cagliari and on the obligatory passage formed by the isthmus that connected the promontory of Capo di S. Elia to the mainland.