Giants of Mont'e Prama, even Franceschini speaks! There will be no snatching

On the affair of the Giants of Mont’e Prama (which we summarized in this article by Leonardo Bison and about which we recounted the latest developments in this brief) now even the culture minister Dario Franceschini is moving. Indeed, the story has some absurdity in it: summarizing brutally, the Cagliari superintendency has to restore the statues of the Giants, kept in the Archaeological Museum of Cabras, but the citizenry fears that the works will take the road to the capital never to return (we speak of objects “taken away from the Museum of Cabras without any guarantee of return to the site”). Thus, the city rallied to obstruct the superintendency, and on the day of the inspection the mayor even closed the museum and deployed the police to keep the superintendency’s technicians from entering.

“We are aware of the extraordinary value of the sculptural complex of Mont’e Prama, and the deep connection with the community, for which it represents a great opportunity for development,” said Franceschini, who also added, “I don’t know how it is possible to imagine that once restored they will not return to Cabras: it would be in contradiction with the whole path promoted by the Ministry in recent years.”

“We have allocated 3 million euros to the municipality of Cabras to make a new museum precisely to house the Giants,” the minister recalled, “and signed an enhancement agreement that aims to promote Sinis and bring back almost the entire sculpture complex. An agreement in which the objective of establishing a Foundation is indicated, not by chance the most inclusive and shared instrument with the territory that we have available, since it provides for the participation of the Municipality and the Region. A project on which we would like to restart the dialogue with the Mayor and the President of the Region, in order to give it rapid implementation.”

Already last February 8, the General Directorate of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape had moved with a note, letting it know that “No ’snatching’ or ’snatching’ is therefore perpetrated by the State to the Municipality of Cabras, as instead reported by some organs of the press, dealing with the mandatory exercise of the institutional functions proper to the State.” The Giants, in fact, are in need of restoration work judged “unpostponable” by technicians, and according to the Code of Cultural Heritage it is up to the State to protect the archaeological assets found in the national subsoil, as the State is the owner. Moreover, the state has already allocated 60 thousand euros for the intervention. In addition, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities has allocated 3 million to build a new museum in Cabras, according to an enhancement agreement signed on July 19, 2017 and valid for five years.

In Cabras, however, they seem not to hear, and on Saturday morning a demonstration was also organized in front of the museum (which was also attended by the first citizen, and many other mayors of cities and towns in the area, including the mayor of Oristano) to ask the Superintendence not to transfer the works to Cagliari for restoration work, but ei perform it on site.

Pictured is a detail of one of the Giants of Mont’e Prama.

Giants of Mont'e Prama, even Franceschini speaks! There will be no snatching

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