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Rock Tomb at Ghajn Qajjet, near Rabat, Malta

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

J. G. Baldacchino  and
T. J. Dunbabin
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Extract

On the 22nd September, 1950, whilst workmen were digging a trench for the laying of a water main at Ghajn Qajjet, near Rabat, Malta (Malta 2″ Map. Ref. 356247) at a depth of 2 ft. 8 in. below the surface of the road, the burial chamber of a rock-cut tomb was broken into (fig. 1).

This chamber (fig. 2), rectangular in plan and with a flat ceiling, measured 12 ft. in length, 10 ft. in width, and 5 ft. 7 in. in height; its long axis ran in a north-easterly direction. A slab of Globigerina limestone (pl. XII), 6 ft. 5 in. long, 5 ft. 8 in. wide, and 5 in. thick, rested horizontally on the floor and was set with two of its sides in contact with the north-east and the south-east walls; owing to the slight inclination of the floor, being higher towards the north-east, it was propped up by roughly dressed small blocks of stone. There was also a cavity, 10 in. in diameter and 6 in. deep, cut in the floor at a distance of 4 in. from the south-west side of the stone slab and quite close to the south-east wall of the chamber.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 21 , November 1953 , pp. 32 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1953

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References

1 I owe my knowledge of (i) and (v), and information about these and (iv), to notes and photographs kindly sent by Dr. Baldacchino.

A pyxis and lid of the first half or middle of the seventh century, and sixth-century Corinthian vases found in Malta, are also described by Mayr, loc. cit. supra.

2 Lid of a kotyle-pyxis, of the shape of Necrocoriruhia, pp. 295 ff., nos. 700-6 A (cf. Hopper, R. J., BSA xliv, pp. 223 ff.Google Scholar), as Professor A. D. Trendall has observed.

3 Another bird-bowl found in Italy is in Copenhagen, , CVA ii, pl. 79. 7Google Scholar.

Another from Populonia, in Florence, associated with Protocorinthian vases of the second quarter of the seventh century, appears to be an Italian imitation.

Pinza, refers (RM xxii, 133, n. 1Google Scholar) to a bird-bowl from Chiusi, but none is illustrated or described in AdI 1877, to which he refers. The cup MA xv, pl. 9.13,isnotabirdbowl.