Casa Zapata

The Casa Zapata is the ethnographic and archaeological museum of Barumini, housed in a 16th-century Spanish manor house in the village centre. The building itself holds a surprise: it was constructed over an earlier nuraghe, and the prehistoric structure is now preserved beneath a glass floor in the ground-level gallery, so you can look down into a Bronze Age room while walking through a Renaissance palazzo.

The upper galleries contain displays on Sardinian folk life — traditional dress, tools, ceramics — as well as finds from the Su Nuraxi excavations, including bronzetti (small bronze figurines) and pottery. The museum is included in the combined ticket with Su Nuraxi and is a good way to contextualise what you have seen at the main site. It closes for lunch from 1pm to 3pm.

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A story
When the 16th-century Spanish noble family Zapata built their manor house in Barumini, they inadvertently built it on top of a nuraghe. The discovery was made when the building was converted into a museum — the original Nuragic structure is now preserved beneath a glass floor, visible from the museum galleries above.