Malta’s earliest temple : the completion of the work on the Neolithic village of Skorba described

Abstract

In May the National Museum of Malta dug for a fifth season at the temple and village of Skorba. Reports have appeared in these pages (The Illustrated London News, August 11 and December 30 1961, August 12, 1962, March 23, 1963) describing the progress of work during the earlier campaigns. These has ended with the suspected temple confirmed; the temple cleared but other structures located on either side. the western outbuildings cleared but huts of an underlying village found behind them, and a second temple confirmed to the east; the western huts and second temple cleared, but a large building of much earlier date located still further east. Since for other reasons this campaign had to be the last, it was most fortunate that it rounded off without leaving any such glaring problems. It is also fortunate that the finds contributed in 1961 by the British Academy, the Society of Antiquaries and public subscription covered all but the last few pounds of the expenses. Help in other forms came from many sources, of which the Director of Public Works, Mr. A. Debono, and our volunteer student assistants should be singled out for special mention. Apart from a few outlying trenches in the northwest and north-east work was concentrated on the two buildings touched on in the previous season to the east of the temples. Little more of the older one, an oval hut of early Grey Skorba date, could be traced due to destruction by the plough (Fig. 11). Finds in the few centimetres of deposit included a quern of local limestone, a cowrie shell, a bone tube perhaps for paint (Fig. 4) and a quantity of coarse pottery of late Ghar Dalam and Grey Skorba types, the two earliest in the Maltese sequence.