Search results for ""Author David Cardona""

The Maltese Archipelago at the Dawn of History. Reassessment of the 1909 and 1959 excavations at Qlejgħa tal-Baħrija and other essays is a collection of essays focusing on the reassessment of the multifaceted evidence which emerged by excavations carried out in 1909 and 1959 in the settlement of Bahrija, a key site for the understanding of the later stages of Maltese prehistory before the beginning of the Phoenician colonial period. The two excavations, largely unpublished, produced a large quantity of ceramic, stone and metal artefacts together with skeletal remains. The reappraisal of the material will shed light on critical moments of central Mediterranean prehistory. Main topics such as the Aegean-Sicily-Malta trade network, mass migration movements from the Balkans towards the Central Mediterranean and the colonial dynamics of the Phoenicians operating in the West are addressed in the light of new data and with the support of an array of archaeometric analyses.

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Much of what is known about Malta’s ancient material culture has come to light as a result of antiquarian research or early archaeological work—a time where little attention was paid to stratigraphic context. This situation has in part contributed to the problem of reliably sourcing and dating Maltese Roman-period pottery, particularly locally produced forms common on nearly all ancient Maltese sites. This book presents a comprehensive study of Maltese pottery forms from key stratified deposits spanning the first century BC to mid-fourth century AD. Ceramic material from three Maltese sites was analysed and quantified in a bid to understand Maltese pottery production during the Roman period, and trace the type and volume of ceramic-borne goods that were circulating the central Mediterranean during the period. A short review of the islands’ recent literature on Roman pottery is discussed, followed by a detailed contextual summary of the archaeological contexts presented in this study. The work is supplemented by a detailed illustrated catalogue of all the forms identified within the assemblages, presenting the wide range of locally produced and imported pottery types typical of the Maltese Roman period.

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