The nuraghe Palmavera is classified as a complex nuraghe, that consists of several towers joined together. The nuraghe and the surrounding village were built in various phase during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age.
The main tower dates back to the first phase (15th-14th century BC) and retains the central chamber covered with the tholos and built with stones in limestone. The tower is archaic, with the entrance free of side passages and with the niches just sketched in the walls of the main chamber. There must have been also some huts outside the nuraghe.
In the second phase (first half of the ninth century BC) was added a second tower and restored the previous tower with blocks of sandstone. The two towers communicated through an interior courtyard and a corridor with niches.
It was also built the meeting hut, equipped with a stone seat that runs along the perimeter, interrupted by a tank made of stone slabs, of unknown function, and a round stone seat for the chief, standing next to a niche in the wall. At the center of the hut, on a circular altar, it is present a model of a nuragic tower in sandstone. In this period were also built other huts in the village of higher dimension.
In the third phase (9th-8th century BC), the nuraghe was restored again with blocks of limestone and around it was built an exterior wall with four towers-huts, forming two outer courts, divided by a wall with no openings. In one of these courts it was inserted the meeting hut, in the other has been identified a silo.
The village was destroyed by fire, probably at the end of the eighth century BC and was later sporadically attended in Punic and Roman times, as witnessed by some pottery found.
References:The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.