Santa Verna
| Santa Verna | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 Remains of the temple |
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Location on Gozo |
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| Coordinates | 36 ° 2 '44.7 " N , 14 ° 15' 31" E | ||
| place | Xagħra , Gozo , Malta | ||
| Emergence | Settlement approx. 5000 BC Chr. Temple approx. 3000 BC Chr. |
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| height | 138 m | ||
Santa Verna is an archaeological site on the Maltese island of Gozo . The settlement finds go back to the Għar Dalam phase about 7000 years ago. The remains of a megalithic temple are dated to the Tarxien phase (3200 to 2500 BC).
description
The archaeological site is at a height of 138 m in a field on the southwestern edge of the Xagħra plateau , about one kilometer from the Ġgantija temples and 550 meters from Brochtorff Circle . It can be reached from Xagħra via a dirt road extending from Triq Santa Verna Street .
The pottery found here proves that today's site has been inhabited since the arrival of humans on Gozo and remained so throughout Maltese prehistory. The temple probably dates from the Tarxien phase, of which three upright monoliths can still be seen, which are supported by three horizontally lying stone blocks that, as it were, form a bank. Such structures are known from the facades of other megalithic temples such as Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra . Excavations have unearthed the arches , which suggest a five-lobed structure like the Ġgantija temples. Other megalithic stones at the site are difficult to identify because of the multiple uses of the area after the end of the temple culture.
Excavation history
Thomas Ashby , the director of the British School at Rome , carried out the first excavation in 1911 with his assistant, the anthropologist Robert Noel Bradley (1879–?), But fell ill, so that the work was directed by Bradley. Just a few centimeters below the surface, this encountered a series of intact door bases and ceramic shards.
Around 1960, the director of Malta's National Museum, David H. Trump (1931-2016), became aware of Bradley's work. He opened in 1961 three small test pits and studied the sequence of undisturbed encountered paleosols . He succeeded in assigning some deeper layers of the ġebbu der phase of the Maltese temple culture (4100-3800 BC), while he dated the temple in one of the following phases (Ġgantija or Tarxien).
After an exploration in 2014, new excavations began in the spring of 2015 under the direction of Caroline Malone (* 1957) from Queen's University Belfast . The structure of the temple was clarified for the first time. The stacked gate floors show that the temple was changed and enlarged several times during its period of use. In addition to ceramic shards, the bones of cattle , goats , sheep and pigs were found that had been domesticated thousands of years ago .
Individual evidence
- ^ Ix-Xagħra. Heritage Trail. ( Memento of the original from December 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 7.43 MB). Rural Development Program for Malta 2007-2013.
- ↑ a b c Caroline Malone: The FRAGSUS Field Season 2015 . Queen's University Belfast, accessed June 11, 2016.
- ↑ Joachim von Freeden: Malta and the architecture of its megalithic temples. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1993, ISBN 3-534-11012-9 , pp. 204f.
- ^ RN Bradley: Malta and the Mediterranian Race . T. Fisher Unwin, London 1912, pp. 65ff.
- ^ A b Rowan McLaughlin, Simon Stoddart, Caroline Malone: Archaeologists return to Santa Verna, Xaghra after 104 years . In: Wirt Għawdex Newsletter 4/2015, pp. 5–7 ( online ).
Web links
- Santa Verna Temple on the Xagħras website (English)