Search results for ""author george azzopardi""
Archaeopress Ras il-Wardija Sanctuary Revisited: A re-assessment of the evidence and newly informed interpretations of a Punic-Roman sanctuary in Gozo (Malta)
The secluded sanctuary on the coastal promontory of Ras il-Wardija on the central Mediterranean island of Gozo (near Malta) constitutes another landmark on the religious map of the ancient Mediterranean. Ritual activity at the sanctuary seems to be evidenced from around the 3rd century BC to the 2nd century AD and, possibly, even as late as the 4th century AD. This ritual activity was focused in a small built temple and in a rock-cut cave that seems to have incorporated a built extension in a later stage. But the practised cult or cults were aniconic and remained so largely throughout. This may explain why the sanctuary’s excavators did not report any findings of statuettes or any figural images. Contemporaneously, figural images were also venerated on other sites showing that, for a long while, iconism and aniconism co-existed on the Maltese islands. There might have been more than one deity venerated in this sanctuary. Dionysos could have been one of them. But whoever they were, they are likely to have been somehow connected with the sea and / or with a maritime community or communities as the sanctuary itself evidently was.
£38.30
Archaeopress Elements of Continuity: Stone Cult in the Maltese Islands
Stones can serve an infinite array of functions both when they are worked and when they are left in a ‘raw’ state. Depending on their function, stones can also be meaningful objects especially when they act as vehicles of ideas or instruments of representation. And it is, therefore, in their functional context, that the meaning of stones can be best grasped. The stones dealt with in this study are non-figural (or aniconic) or, sometimes, semi-figural. They come from ritual contexts and, as such, act as a material representation of divine presence in their role as betyls. But it is not mainly the representational aspect of these stones that this study seeks to highlight. As material representations of divine presence that are also worshipped, these particular stones form part of a phenomenon that seems to know no geographical or temporal boundaries. They are of a universal character. It is this universal character of theirs that seems to qualify these stones as elements forming part of the phenomenon of continuity: continuity across different cultures and in different places along several centuries. It is this phenomenon which this study seeks to highlight through a study of these stones. The Maltese islands are presented as a case study to demonstrate the phenomenon of continuity through a study of these stones. Worship of stones in representation of divine presence is found on the Maltese islands since prehistoric times. But the practice survived several centuries under different cultures represented by unknown communities during the islands’ prehistory and the Phoenicians / Carthaginians and the Romans in early historic times.
£36.03
Archaeopress The Roman Municipia of Malta and Gozo: The Epigraphic Evidence
How did the Maltese and Gozitans fare under Roman occupation? How were they treated by their new masters? And what did they do to appease them? What changes did the new political situation bring about in their lives? How did they respond and / or adapt? Was their religious identity in any way affected? How did they manoeuvre their loyalties to their own benefits? And how did they manage their own domestic affairs within the new political set-up? Though based essentially on epigraphical evidence, this study seeks to address the above and other questions through an exercise in which epigraphy and the archaeological record supplement each other. The results shed new light on the governing bodies of the Maltese islands in Roman times and the models they followed, those who administered them, the latter’s role and status, and also their relationship with and their significance for the rest of the population.
£45.30
