Pompu owes its name to a procession. Around a small sanctuary dedicated to Santa Maria di Monserrato ceremonies were once held that drew people from near and far; at the foot of the sanctuary a cluster of houses grew up, and its inhabitants, who were the keepers of the church and the organisers of the yearly feast, were called Pompesi, from the Latin pompa, procession. The village took the same name.
That name, by a trick of the language, has ended up in common speech: in many varieties of Sardinian the phrase a casin'e Pompu means in a place very far off, at the end of the world. And yet in the nineteenth century there was plenty of work here: four mills turned along the Riu de Pompu, several houses still hold their grain querns, and in one old dwelling an olive press of the early eighteen-hundreds is preserved. Just outside the village lies the site of Prabanta, with a multi-lobed nuraghe, stone mills and the old church of San Sebastiano. The comune was abolished in 1927 and joined to Siris and Masullas, and Pompu took it back in 1961.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Pompu
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
