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Supplementary excavations at Hal-Tarxien, Malta, in 1921

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

T. Ashby
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Extract

Professor T. Zammit was so kind as to invite me, during a short visit to Malta in March and April 1921, to conduct supplementary excavations under the torba floors of the sanctuary at Hal-Tarxien, which he had discovered and excavated. The results are not without interest both for the history of the building and from the nature of the objects found. They bear out Professor Zammit's conclusions as to the relative date of the various portions of the building; and we may add that the spiral decorations and small niches found in the temple of the second period all appear to belong to the latest (third) period in the history of the whole. It also unfortunately seems clear that we have not, as I had hoped, acquired any information to help us in the dating of the various forms and decorations which we find in the pottery of Malta. The excavations in those parts of the building which belonged to the first and second periods revealed in almost every case the existence of an earlier floor below that which had previously been cleared. Taking the earliest building first, we found that the slabs in the right-hand apses BB, DD (which are alone preserved, the left-hand apses having been destroyed by subsequent alterations) rested upon the rock, which had been cut away so as to follow their curve, and were kept in place by inclination against one another, smaller stones being placed to block up the interstices between them.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , April 1924 , pp. 93 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1924

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References

page 93 note 1 Archaeologia, lxvii, 127; lxviii, 263; lxx, 179.

page 93 note 2 Compare Peet, in Papers Brit. Sch. at Rome, vi, 61Google Scholar.

page 93 note 3 See the plan (pl. xiii) in Archaeologia, lxx.

page 93 note 4 Archaeologia, lxx, 179.

page 93 note 5 Archaeologia, cit., 180.

page 95 note 1 The rock rises so rapidly that the north-eastern part of the upper torba pavement of the inner room AA BB rests directly upon it, and there is a step up where it begins to do so.

page 95 note 2 For the upper layer we may note more especially Tagliaferro's, Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology (Liverpool), iii (1910) 1sgq.Google Scholar, classes 3 (pl. i, fig. 6) 8; from the lower 3 (pl. 1, fig. 2, etc.) rough red pitted and finger-nail; fine black pitted; fine black line; 6 (pl. iii, fig. 5); 20 (pl. x, fig. 12) in black; 23 (pl. xiii, fig. 9). In both layers we may say that, though the pottery is perhaps slightly rougher than it became later, all the elements of design are present.

page 95 note 1 Archaeologia, lxviii, 267.

page 96 note 1 One measured from 32 to 28 cm. in upper diameter, and 25 cm. in lower, and was 35 cm. high: the other was 23 cm. in diameter and 15 cm. high.

page 97 note 1 This is also indicated by the fact that one piece of the red painted pottery was found embedded vertically in it, with a stone lying against it on which some of the red paint had come off; while another was found near the threshold only 40 cm. below its upper surface.

page 97 note 2 For the use of red pigment compare the neolithic burial found at Bukana near Attard in 1910 (Zammit, in Times, 13 th Dec. 1910Google Scholar, Bull. Paletnol. Ital., xxxvii (1911), 1Google Scholar, and Annual Report of the Curator of the Valletta Museum, 1910–11, 3). For Italian examples cf. Peet, , Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy, 38sqqGoogle Scholar.

page 98 note 1 In one case torba 2 cm. (1 in.) thick was laid on the top of a slab to level it with the rest (on the right of the door going out into cc, DD)

page 98 note 2 The niche in B has a slab floor resting on the torba (this is not noted in Archaeologia, lxviii, 271).

page 98 note 3 One circular piece of incised ware, 3 cm. (1 in.) in diameter, had been cut as a counter (?).

page 99 note 1 Archaeologia, cit, 272.

page 99 note 2 This slab was 39 cm. (1 ft. 3 in.) thick, and the cavity was 29 cm. (1 ft.) deep.

page 99 note 3 A block of stone was put here on the level of the lower torba to cover the fissures mentioned below.

page 99 note 4 Archaeologia, cit., 265.

page 100 note 1 Hort, in Man, 1911, No. 99Google Scholar.