MaltaPot was a two-year research project on early Neolithic pottery found in the Maltese Islands completed in 2020. It includes in its scope pottery from the Għar Dalam, Skorba and Żebbuġ phases of Malta’s pre-Temple Building society.
The project was led by the Department of Classics and Archaeology of the Faculty of Arts, University of Malta, and has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under a Marie Skłodowska Curie grant agreement.
The objectives of the project included determining the nature of materials used in the pottery, and identifying their source, to answer the research question: were the pots from this period of Maltese prehistory fabricated locally, or were they brought to the islands by the immigrants who settled here? A number of material characterization and analytical methods were employed by researchers to find answers to this question.
In addition, the project provided a postdoctoral experience and training to the principal researcher, Dr Catriona Brogan.
From 2018-2020, the main team was composed of Dr Catriona Brogan, post-doc researcher and Dr Ing. John C. Betts (coordinator), Dr Maxine Anastasi, and Prof Nicholas Vella
Since 2020, other researchers have joined the project including Maria Vella from the Department of Classics and Archaeology (Scientific Officer) and Emma Richard-Trémeau.
The aims of the MaltaPot research project were to:
The MaltaPot Continuity Project was introduced after the formal termination of the MaltaPot Project to promote and support continuing research in Maltese pottery material investigation.
The MaltaPot project was followed up by a project on Punic/ Roman pottery: the CoFIPoMs project. This project applied some techniques used during MaltaPot (XRF, petrography) but also expanded the research on clays and experimental archaeology.
A trial for a citizen science project, Potifer, was the object of a student dissertation by Kellian Coste, an undergraduate student from the University of Edinburgh, co-supervised by Emma Richard-Trémeau at the University of Malta. The dissertation aimed at assessing if it was possible to recognise and count the foraminifera found in pottery sherds from microphotographs.
The MaltaPot project was a collaboration between several departments within the University of Malta, Heritage Malta and the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage. The main funding for the project came from the European Union.
University of Malta
Heritage Malta
Superintendence of Cultural Heritage
European Union
This research project has required the collaboration of many teams in Malta and abroad. We are particularly grateful to Dr Claudio Capelli and his laboratory associates for their continuing collaboration with the department.
This project was only possible thanks to the support of Isabella Zeno (Project Support Office) and Louisa Borg (administration specialist).
Our collaborators at the University of Malta include Joseph Grech from the Department of Chemistry, who conducted the XRF analysis. We are grateful to the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering staff for the training, the trust in using their equipment, and the help in the analyses. These include Noel Tonna, Ing. Mary Grace
Micallef, Nicholas Gingell, Ing. James Camilleri and Daniel Dimech. Dr Gianmarco Alberti, from Criminology, has provided expertise in quantitative analysis and conducted preliminary work on the XRF data. Dr Daniel Vella has helped with XRD analysis and microRaman spectroscopy. Dr Alexandra Bonnici from Systems and Control Engineering has provided ideas, training and codes to look at the XRD data using MATLAB. Marc Anthony Azzopardi and Kevin Caruana Montaldo from Electronic Systems Engineering have explored X-Ray Imaging of sherds with us.
We thank Sharon Sultana, Marcia Grima and Pierre Bonello at the National Museum of Archaeology (NMA), Heritage Malta, for their time and expertise. The Diagnostic Science Laboratory team has supported this project by granting access to equipment and providing training. Special thanks to Matthew Grima and Samantha Debono.
We would like to thank Prof. Nicoletta Mancin, University of Pavia, for identifying some of the foraminifera visible in pottery microphotographs. We are grateful to Prof. Sandro Lanfranco, Department of Biology, University of Malta, for his collaboration on studying foraminifera with his students.
Many other people have contributed to the project by giving their time and knowledge; these include Ing. Diane Chircop, Dr Ing. Francelle Farrugia, Alycia Maney, Renita Raina El Masri.
Finally, we would like to thank the FRAGSUS team for their involvement at the start of the project; and the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage and the Environment and Resources Authority (ERA) for permits for sampling respectively pottery sherds and geological materials in Natura 2000 zones.