Malta’s role in the Phoenician, Greek and Etruscan trade in the western Mediterranean

Abstract

Malta must have played a significant role in the development of Phoenician commerce in the western Mediterranean, as well as in the impact of this trade on. and its rapport with, the Greek and Etruscan commercial activities in the same region. Although the role of the Maltese islands in the Phoenician and Punic world has been repeatedly illustrated in specific chapters on Malta and Gozo in monographs dealing with the Phoenicians in general, and although various evidences of trading activity between Malta and other parts of the Mediterranean in antiquity have been discussed in a number of other scientific publications, their role in the commercial interrelationship between these three powers still needs to be properly defined. The following is an attempt to make the first step towards achieving this task.