The Gozo stone circle re-discovered

Abstract

Every summer between 1987 and 1994 excavations were carried out on an archaeological site on the outskirts of Xaghra in Gozo, about half way between the important prehistoric remains at Santa Verna and the Ggantija Temples. The project involved the Universities of Malta, Cambridge and later Bristol, in conjunction with the Malta Museum of Archaeology. This site has long been known as the Gozo Stone Circle. It was given the name Brocktorff Circle in 1972 by Dr. David Trump, a former Curator of Archaeology in Malta, in commemoration of Charles Frederick Brocktorff, the German artist who painted the Circle in the 1820s .. Earlier in archaeological and historical literature, it has been referred to variously as Un Edifice Antique de Forme Circulaire, A Circle of Cyclopean Walls or simply as the Gozo Stone Circle. But the earliest reference to this site is found in an old manuscript in Italian, in which it is described as Un Recinto in Forma di Torneo, i.e. a circular enclosure (M.C.A. Mise. 55: 144).