Introduction

Abstract

The area known as Tas-Silġ is situated in the south-eastern part of the island of Malta, close to Marsaxlokk Harbour (Fig. 1: 1). In reality the place-name refers to the small church dedicated to Our Lady of the Snows (hence Tas-Silg) situated at the point where the narrow road from Żejtun forks out in two directions: to Delimara and Xrobb il-Għagin due southeast and to Marsaxlokk village due south-west (Figs 1:2-1:4). A British period fort occupying the highest point of the elongated hill further south along the first road carries also the same place-name. The lower and more compact hill on which the excavations have been conducted is called 'Ta' Birikka', but since the archaeological site is so close to the abovementioned church (only 50 m to the north) the tradition of calling it Tas-Silġ is now well established and there is no sense in changing it. 1 The site has a commanding view of the Marsaxlokk Harbour to the south and overlooks two other bays, Marsascala and St Thomas bay, to the north-east. On all sides the slope is broken up by man-made terraced fields. The site is split into two areas by the Marsaxlokk-Żejtun road (Triq Xrobb 1-Għagin), a Northern and a Southern enclosure now surrounded by boundary walls (Figs 1:4-1 :5). A series of eight grand-scale excavation expeditions carried out at the site by an Italian Missione Archeologica between 1963 and 1970 uncovered remains spanning several millennia: from a prehistoric megalithic temple of the Late Neolithic Tarxien phase (3000-2500 BC), through an unprecedented adaptation of the same into a Phoenician-Punic temple and a Late Republican monumentalising building programme, down to the conversion of its colonnaded courtyard into an early Christian church in the fifth century.