Luigi M. Ugolini’s Malta Antica I : i templi neolitici di Tarscien (The Tarxien Neolithic temples)

Abstract

Every country can boast of an exceptional archaeological site or find. The Tarxien temple complex on the island of Malta is up there with Crete’s Knossos and Sardinia’s Barumini and, with Malta’s other megalithic sites and the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum, it is an icon of Malta’s prehistoric past. Just like many similar sites in the Mediterranean, Tarxien was explored in the heyday of archaeological exploration – the early twentieth century – when antiquarian methods were gradually being exchanged for a more informed archaeological method, with attention given to stratigraphic sequence and a systematic collection of finds. Of course, the excavations at Tarxien fit neatly into what we have come to expect from early twentieth-century digs where large numbers of workmen wielding heavy tools were overseen by the archaeologist when he could afford to be on site, and the recovery methods were coarse by today’s standards even if sieving of deposit is known to have been carried out (Fig. 0.1). Tarxien was certainly special for its explorer: here was the site of a megalithic temple complex that had not been touched by antiquarians; it was not a ruin in the landscape – just as Ġgantija, Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra had been for centuries – but was entirely buried under the soil of several contiguous agricultural fields, a total area of about 2700 sq. m (see Zammit 1930: xiii) (Figs 0.2-0.4). Moreover, the site provided the leading Maltese pioneer of archaeology in the archipelago, Themistocles Zammit, with the opportunity of joining mainstream colonial archaeologists in producing results of considerable note, documenting meticulously what was done (Pessina and Vella 2021: 186-212). [Excerpt from the Introduction]