ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

The archaeological site is composed of several Punic tombs, located near the city of Rabat in Malta.

Site discovery
The site of G的ajn Qajjet is located west of Rabat, in a particularly fertile valley of the region.

The first tomb of the site was discovered by Themistocles Zammit in 1934, it contained a copper loop.

J. G. Baldacchino, who will search the site, will release a total of 20 penic graves: 8 have already been looted, 7 contain no objects but 5 are discovered intact.

Funeral room
The , workers digging a trench in the road fall on an important burial chamber, dug into the rock, measuring on height. The bottom of the chamber was dug m metres below the surface of the ground, access being through a series of 21 steps dug into the rock. The entrance door to the chamber was closed by a large stone slab erect vertically. Inside the chamber is installed a large slab of globigerine (dimension: × thickness) on which two adult human skeletons, one male and one female, were resting. Other bones of animals rested next to the slab.

Exhumed equipment
Five silver bracelets and two bronze bracelets, four silver rings, four key-shaped iron rods and one feldspath pearl are found among the skeleton members. It is, with the one discovered in 1934, the only two graves on the site to contain personal ornaments.

Several ancient pottery are also found. The dates of the various artifacts are divided into two periods, the second half of most, giving the approximate date of the grave on the one hand and some other elements dated from the , suggesting a subsequent reuse of the burial.

Among the ceramic objects are two important Greek vases:
a proto-corinthian kylix from the end of
a kylix from Eastern Greece decorated with drawings of birds dating from the end of the or beginning of the

An element of a bronze torch holder is also discovered, it is dated from the beginning of and belongs to a well-known cypro-phenician type, similar to others found in Sidon, Cyprus, Rhodes, Sardinia and Caere.

The dates found in this tomb correspond to the oldest assured traces of the Phoenician presence on the Maltese archipelago.

Bibliography

Notes and references

Punic archaeological site in Malta
History of Malta in Antiquity
Tomb